Searching for Resources to Teach the Common Standards

This from Curriculum Matters:

If yearning had a sound, the air would be full of noise right now. That's because teachers across the country are looking for help in teaching the common-core state standards.

We heard this message loud and clear in August, when we hosted a webinar on the common standards. The biggest vein of questions pouring in during the Q&A period could be summed up this way: "Help! Where can I find resources to help me teach these new standards?"

Immediately, we felt their pain. We looked around on the Web to see what kinds of help was out there for teachers, and it wasn't easy to find, at least in any centralized kind of way. (See our blog post here.)

That isn't really a surprise, since each state and district is grappling with the issue its own way. The two consortia of states that are developing assessments for the common core have instructional resources planned, but most of them aren't available yet. The groups that organized or advocated for the common core have a few things out there. (Consider this resource list from the Council of Chief State School Officers, which includes links to a math curricular analysis tool, sample instructional English/language arts units, and some other information sources.) But either the pickings are still a bit thin, or folks just can't locate them easily, or both...

Wyoming's journey to finding common education standards slows down

This from the Trib.com:

One year ago, many people assumed Wyoming and most of the nation would adopt national standards in language arts and math.

The State Board of Education first approved them in June 2010. Committees of educators reviewed the common core standards, as they are called, compared them to Wyoming standards, recommended adoption and drafted new state standards.

Public comment was held in late spring of this year. The process seemed to be chugging along until September, when lawmakers questioned the standards and how Wyoming came to adopt them without legislative input.

The decision rests with the State Board of Education, which sets standards — not curriculum — according to state law. A final decision is expected in the spring of 2012 — a little more than two years from the time the discussion began.

Once the common core standards were released, committees comprised of Wyoming educators, students, parents and other citizens reviewed the Wyoming standards and compared them to the common core. The language arts committee overwhelmingly recommended the board adopt common core standards.

The math committee split, and many commented the common core would increase the rigor in math. About one-third said they couldn’t recommend the common core because the standards might be too difficult for recommended grades and don’t clearly align from grade to grade.

Educators have said the Wyoming standards align well for language arts but the math standards are, generally, tougher and expect mastery of certain skills in earlier grades. For example, Wyoming students were expected to know multiplication in fourth grade. The common core places that benchmark in third grade...

In 2011: 

Common Core State Standards were incorporated into Wyoming content standards

for language arts and math. 

Public comment was accepted in the spring.

Lawmakers questioned the process in the fall 

and considered repealing the state Board of Education's authority to set standards.

The state board approved revised standards in September 

and began the formal rules-making process.

Coming in 2012: 

Public comment will be collected online through Jan. 25 

and during several public hearings held across the state. 

The board will respond to every comment before making a final decision in early spring.

2010: A Busy Year

Last week, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday took a look back at the events of 2010 and notes that it was a busy, fruitful year for the state’s P-12 education community.

“When I tally up the events and accomplishments related to P-12 education, I see many positive events,” said Holliday. “Overall, 2010 will be remembered as a year of activity and purpose in public education. I believe that Kentuckians have a renewed sense of hope for the future of our P-12 education system, and I know that our teachers, principals, superintendents, parents, elected officials and citizens recognize their crucial importance to the state’s success.”

Then, as is the new year's custom, the Commish offered the major highlights of public education in 2010.

• Common Core State Standards adoption – In March, the Kentucky Board of Education, Council on Postsecondary Education and the Education Professional Standards Board jointly adopted the Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and mathematics. In doing so, Kentucky became the first state in the nation to adopt those standards. This was a bold step toward improving education outcomes for Kentucky’s students. The work began in 2009, when Gov. Steve Beshear signed the agreement that states develop common academic standards. Kentucky joined 50 states and territories, the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, Achieve, ACT, ETS and others in a major effort to place America back in the front of educational attainment in the world. Everyone was so excited they did the happy dance.
• Passage of House Bill 176 (KRS 160.346) – In its regular session, the 2010 General Assembly passed House Bill 176, which will have resonating effects for years to come throughout the state’s public school classrooms. House Bill 176 provided much-needed interventions in the state’s lowest-performing schools. Through its mandates, Kentucky is able to offer school districts more options to help them improve – from selecting an education management organization to operate schools, to exercising more flexibility in staffing, to restructuring the existing management of those schools that are persistently low-performing. Thanks to the actions of the legislature, and to the support of educators, board members and partners across the state, Kentucky will lead the nation in the next wave of educational improvement.
• Persistently low-achieving schools named and supported – In the spring of 2010, Kentucky identified 10 schools as “persistently low-achieving” (PLA), based on state and federal criteria. The schools’ identifications were tied to their reading and mathematics test score results and adequate yearly progress (AYP) status. By identifying these schools, we ensured that they would be eligible to receive federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funding of up to $1.5 million over a three-year period. This funding will be used to help the schools raise achievement levels, improve the performance of their students and achieve AYP. The schools also received leadership assessments, which provided insight and suggestions for improvement, along with strong technical support.
• New Kentucky Board of Education members –Gov. Steve Beshear appointed five new members to the Kentucky Board of Education. The five – Martha Jones, Roger Marcum, Jay Parrent, Bill Twyman and Mary Gwen Wheeler – represent a broad range of experience and backgrounds, but they share the common goal of improving education for the state’s children. In August, the board selected David Karem as its chair, then set four strategic priorities to guide its work: Next-Generation Learners; Next-Generation Professionals; Next-Generation Support Systems; and Next-Generation Schools and Districts. This board is focused on supporting schools and districts, raising achievement, ensuring that students are prepared for life after high school, closing gaps, accountability and transparency.
• Leadership Networks – Throughout 2010, KDE staff were engaged in the work of developing a system of Leadership Networks designed to support the high-quality implementation of the requirements set forth in 2009’s Senate Bill 1. The networks are intended to build the capacity of each school district as they implement Kentucky’s new Core Academic Standards, develop assessment literacy among all educators and work toward ensuring that every student is college- and career-ready. Those Leadership Networks are now in place. Participants are collaborating with other leaders in their regions to hone practice and knowledge and working within their districts to scale up highly effective practices in every classroom.
• Budget cuts – As with other state agencies, the Kentucky Department of Education has experienced significant budget cuts over the past few fiscal years. This has impacted our agency’s ability to fill empty positions and required us to rethink our short- and long-term plans. An agency-wide reorganization in the summer of 2010 was a direct response to these cuts and enabled us to focus on the Kentucky Board of Education’s strategic priorities, the implementation of 2009’s Senate Bill 1 and the provision of services to our state’s 174 school districts.
• Race to the Top – Kentucky was fortunate to be named as a finalist in both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the federal Race to the Top competition. However, we were not awarded funds in either phase. This was disappointing; but, the lack of Race to the Top funding did not deter us from moving forward with our plans. We’ve continued to focus on support for students and educators; providing high-quality learning opportunities; providing the training our educators need; connecting them with best practices; and setting a high bar for success. The fact that Kentucky was named a finalist twice indicates that our plans are strong and worthwhile. And, the unanimous support of our plan from the state’s superintendents and local boards of education was a heartening result of this process.

States’ Progress and Challenges in Implementing Common Core State Standards

This from the Center on Education Policy:

Most states are participating in the initiative led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop and adopt voluntary common core state standards that will outline what elementary and secondary school students are expected to learn in English language arts and mathematics. Implementing these standards will require complementary and sometimes complex changes to a host of education policies and programs, from teacher preparation to testing.

To learn more about states’ progress and plans for implementing the common core state standards, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) surveyed state deputy superintendents of education or their designees in October and November of 2010. Responses were received from 42 states and the District of Columbia, which is counted as a state in the tallies in this report. Responses were kept confidential to encourage frank answers.

Key Findings: Several key findings can be drawn from states’ survey responses.

• State officials cited educational quality issues more often than they cited federal Race to Top (RttT) requirements as important factors in their states’ decision to adopt the common core state standards. States that have adopted the common standards most often cited the rigor of the standards and their potential to guide statewide education improvement as very important or important considerations in their decision. Somewhat fewer states cited the possible effect of adopting these standards on their RttT application as very important or important to their decision.

• Many states anticipate it will take until 2013 or later to fully implement the more complex changes associated with the common core state standards.Most of the responding states that have adopted the new standards plan tomake related changes in assessment, curriculum, teacher policies, and other areas, but their timelines for putting in place these changes vary.Most of these states expect to accomplish changes in professional development programs by 2012 or earlier. But many states do not expect to fully implementmajor changes in assessment, curriculum, teacher evaluation, and teacher certification until 2013 or later, or to institute a requirement for local districts to implement the common standards until that time.

• Althoughmost adopting states will require school districts to implement the common core state standards, the majority of these states are not requiring districts to make complementary changes in curriculum and teacher programs.Most of these states are expecting, rather than requiring, districts to undertake such activities as developing new curriculum materials and instructional practices, providing professional development to teachers and principals, and designing and implementing teacher induction programs and evaluations related to the standards.

• The hope that the common core state standards will encourage a seamless system of education from elementary school through college is far from being realized. Officials from most adopting states were unsure whether their state plans to align undergraduate admission requirements or first-year college curriculum with the common core state standards. Smaller numbers said their state intends tomake these change, and a few said they will not make these changes. Although many states plan to align the academic or pedagogical content of teacher preparation programs with the common standards, roughly similar numbers of states are unsure whether they will take these actions.

• Developing teacher evaluation systems geared to the common core state standards and finding funds were most often cited by states as major challenges to implementing the standards. Many states also viewed aligning teacher preparation to the standards, developing curriculummaterials tied to the standards, and implementing new assessments aligned with the standards as major implementation challenges.

• Race to the Top funding appears to be helping with implementation of the common core state standards. Only a few states that won Race to the Top grants expect funding for standards implementation to be a major challenge, in contrast to other states. Many RttT winners expect to make standards-related changes in assessment, teacher certification, and teacher evaluation sooner than other states. A much higher proportion of RttT winners than of other standards-adopting states expect to link their teacher evaluation systems to students’mastery of the standards.

Full Report here.

Curriculum Standards and Content Reading in Fayette Middle Schools

About a month ago KSN&C picked up a comment from Anonymous, a Fayette County middle school teacher. The commenter was exasperated.

As an educator, I'm beaten. What I do isn't good enough for Stu or Jack Hayes.

Yesterday we were told we should not be using novels in teh middle school. Kids should only be reading non-fiction! I don't remember the rationale that was offered. Frankly, I don't care.

I'll let Greg Stmbo take my two days. It will mean I spend less time hearing what I'm doing wrong from Jack Hayes and Stu Silberman....I used to love my job in Fayette County Schools. No longer.

Well, I let that simmer for a while and finally got the chance to follow up the other day.

FCPS Director of Student Achievement Support, Jack Hayes responded to KSN&C inquiries saying, "We absolutely want our middle school kids reading novels, and poems, and plays, and short stories." He explained,

The conversation that has been going on is around our curriculum standards. They’re no longer developed around [the] genre of reading, but around “big ideas” that clearly require us to teach from not only those literary formats, but also technical pieces, informational pieces, blogs, online journals, persuasive pieces, etc. It’s not just about novels, but about a world of reading that we’re preparing our kids for.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that KSN&C (and maybe a few other blogs) might contribute content for middle schoolers. Although now that I think of it, he didn't really specify KSN&C. But I'm sure that's what he meant.

But, I digress.

Hayes continued,

As you know, we spend a lot of our time in classrooms, and the topic has come up that in some of our schools we seem to be very heavily weighted toward teaching novels (almost exclusively). In those cases we’ve opened the conversations about long-range curriculum planning: are we just going to teach reading from novels, or at some point teach from the countless other forms of texts kids will come across...

So in Hayes's mind, it's a matter degree. Some novels - fine. But all novels - not fine.

Hayes suggests that the mix of genres "will better prepare [students] for success in high school, college and beyond." To support his argument, Hayes reminds us that "very few of us actually read novels on the job, but most of us read constantly on the job."

As you know, change isn’t always easy, and in many cases that conversation has been difficult for folks who love teaching novels, and who actually went into teaching with that in mind. It was okay when I first started teaching, because we didn’t have standards that suggested (or required) otherwise. But like it or not the standards are here, and are forcing us to do better by our kids as far as preparing them for high school, college and the world of work. So, no, we aren’t discouraging any of our middle schools from using novels to teach reading, but we are encouraging them to use many, many other things alongside them.

Hayes chalks it up to a misunderstanding.

I regret that someone (or some folks) misinterpreted that conversation, but I suspect it’s more about feeling challenged to shrink my novel list from ten titles to five so that I can pick up some of the other things I need to be teaching from.

KDE Wants Feedback on Common Core Standards

The Kentucky Department of Education invites educators and the public to review and provide feedback on the draft Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and mathematics.

Kentucky will collect feedback via surveys and submit it to Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) for their consideration as they finalize the standards.

The draft standards are posted at the survey site, or visit http://www.corestandards.org/ to see the drafts.

The surveys will be open until March 29. To access the surveys, visit the Kentucky Department of Education’s homepage at http://www.education.ky.gov/ or the URLs below.

English/Language Arts Standards Survey

Mathematics Standards Survey

These standards represent a set of expectations for student knowledge and skills from kindergarten through grade 12 that will result in high school graduates who are prepared for success in college and careers.

To develop the standards, CCSSO and the NGA Center worked with representatives from Kentucky and 50 other states and territories, a wide range of educators, content experts, researchers, national organizations and community groups.

On February 10, the Kentucky Board of Education, Council on Postsecondary Education and the Education Professional Standards Board agreed to implement the preliminary standards into each agency’s work. Kentucky is the first state to formally accept the standards.

SOURCE: KDE press release

This from Ed Week:

Draft Common Standards Elicit Kudos and Criticism

The first public draft of grade-by-grade common standards, released this morning, is being greeted with a mix of praise and skepticism, illustrating both the mounting consensus that the country needs to set higher expectations for all students and the many problems that complicate their adoption.

An earlier standards document, released last fall, outlined a set of “college and career
readiness” skills that students should master by graduation. The document released Wednesday, from the same common-standards initiative, completes the picture by specifying the competencies students must have in each grade if they are to reach those goals. Merged now into one draft, the standards represent a sweeping—and controversial—attempt to describe the skills and knowledge every American student should have in English/language arts and mathematics to thrive in college or careers...

Why Race to the Middle?

This from the free-market Pioneer Institute:

Massachusetts and California K-12 State Standards

Far Exceed National Standards Drafts

A day after President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan laid out an aggressive plan to expand federal control over K-12 academic standards at the National Governors Association (NGA) winter meetings, a new report criticizes the national standards process as "opaque" and the federal push harmful not only to states with existing high standards but to all states that want its students adequately prepared for authentic college level work.

Why Race to the Middle? First-Class State Standards Are Better than Third-Class National Standards, jointly published today by Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts and Pacific Research Institute (PRI) in California, is authored by Ze'ev Wurman, a Silicon Valley executive active in developing California's standards and assessments in the mid-1990s, and Dr. Sandra Stotsky, a current member of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education who in the late 1990s oversaw the creation of Massachusetts' nation-leading state curriculum frameworks in the English language arts, mathematics, science/engineering, and history and social science.

Why Race to the Middle? critiques the draft K-12 mathematics and English standards set forth by the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), which was formed in 2009 by the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) with the encouragement of the U.S. Department of Education (USED), to negotiate standards among all states. They were to be for voluntary adoption by all the states. Yesterday, President Obama and Secretary Duncan made clear that they would now tie Title I funds for K-12 schools to coerce states to adopt the CCSSI proposed standards...

Thanks to Penney.

Who’s Winning the Race to the Top?

“This is a very, very difficult competition.

This is not a race to the middle.

This is a race to the top,

and we meant what we said."

--Arne Duncan

This from Thomas W. Carroll, president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, in the City Journal:

Love for Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

...and likes Colorado, Georgia, Delaware and Michigan.

Calls the rest likely losers

After reviewing all the available state applications, totaling thousands of pages, I’ve grouped the 40 applying states (and D.C.) into three categories: very competitive (three states); competitive (four states); and likely losers (33 states, including four last-minute flameouts). With luck, both the winners and the losers in Race to the Top will prompt further education reform across the nation.

Three states submitted applications that strike me as very competitive: Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee. All three began sprinting around the education-reform racetrack long before the Race to the Top starting gun was even fired.

Over the past decade, Florida has consistently been among the nation’s most aggressive education-reform states. Among the pluses: Florida’s excellent accountability system for schools; annual testing in grades three and higher, instituted even before the adoption of the No Child Left Behind act; a longitudinal database containing student data from pre-K through age 20; a strong charter-school law that has enabled the state to open more than 400 charters serving almost 130,000 students, with no cap on the number of such schools; 19,500 students receiving special-education vouchers; and a tax-credit program for corporate donations to private-school scholarship programs benefiting more than 22,000 students. Florida’s application also provided the best “gap analysis”—that is, it identified precisely the next steps that the state would need to take to meet its Race to the Top expectations.

Louisiana, meanwhile, has been using a value-added model to track student achievement for three years. It has also participated in the development of the Common Core Standards Initiative; created alternative-certification routes that allow organizations other than education schools to give teachers credentials; improved its teacher pipeline through strong partnerships with The New Teacher Project and Teach for America; and experimented with performance-based compensation in 41 school districts. Louisiana has one of the nation’s strongest charter-school laws; among other things, it no longer caps the number of charter schools allowed in the state. New Orleans posts the highest charter-school market share in the nation, with 55 percent of its public-school students enrolled in charters.

In education circles, Tennessee is perhaps best known for the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS), which has amassed 18 years of longitudinal data on student progress—an important advantage, given the importance that Race to the Top places on data. Tennessee also has drawn considerable attention for the aggressive efforts of Governor Philip Bredesen, a Democrat, to make his state more competitive for Race to the Top funding. In 2009, the governor pushed through revisions in the state’s relatively weak charter-school law, getting the cap on charter schools increased from 50 to 90. The law provides per-pupil facilities funding (something that many charter laws lack), and it extends the length of charters from five to ten years. For an encore, the governor—after hardball negotiating—signed legislation requiring districts to base at least 50 percent of their teacher evaluations on student test results and 35 percent on data from TVAAS...

In total, awards to these seven states (Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware and Michigan) would allocate almost half of the $4 billion in Race to the Top dollars, leaving about $2 billion unspent—giving other states another chance to adopt reforms in time for the June 1 second-round deadline...

Common Standards a Plus ...Charters a Minus

This from Politics K-12:

Obama Ups Ante
for Common Core

As Lesli Maxwell over at State EdWatch previewed yesterday, President Obama today dropped another big clue as to how the administration wants to reshape the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This is timely especially as congressional hearings in the House get underway on Wednesday, and as finalists for Race to the Top are expected to be announced next week.

In order to qualify for billions of dollars in Title I money for disadvantaged students, states will have to certify that their math and reading standards are college- and career-ready. They can either do this by adopting the state-led "common core" standards, or work with an institution of higher education to certify their standards. Read a one-page fact sheet here.

Practically speaking, Obama's plan doesn't require states adopt what comes out of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, being spearheaded by the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers—but it's clearly the administration's preference. "You'll be able to better compete for funds," President Obama told the governors today at the White House. That means as the administration seeks to make more education funds competitive, participants in the common core effort will have a leg up...

C-SPAN Video: Obama on Education at 12:50 mark.

This from the White House:

President Obama Calls for
New Steps to Prepare America’s Children
for Success in College and Careers

Obama Administration Applauds Governors
for Bipartisan Work to Develop
Higher Standards in Education

WASHINGTON, DC – Today at a meeting with our nation’s governors, President Obama outlined new steps to better prepare America’s children for college and the workplace. The President is calling for a redesigned Elementary and Secondary Education Act that includes a comprehensive, new vision to help states successfully transition to and implement college- and career-ready standards by improving teacher preparation and development, upgrading classroom instruction, and supporting high-quality assessments.

“America’s prosperity has always rested on how well we educate our children – but never more so than today,” said President Barack Obama. “This is true for our workers, when a college graduate earns over 60 percent more in a lifetime than a high school graduate. This is true for our businesses, when according to one study; six in ten say they simply can’t find qualified people to fill open positions.”

Last year, the President challenged states to develop standards and assessments that will help America’s children rise to the challenge of graduating from high school prepared for college and the workplace.

Today, the Obama Administration announced new efforts to promote college- and career-ready standards in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The President and Secretary Duncan applauded Governors for their efforts to work together in a state-led consortium – managed by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) – to develop and implement common reading and math standards that build toward college- and career-readiness.

“With many states well positioned to adopt these common standards that better position our students for college and careers, the Governors initiative is an essential first step in improving the rigor of teaching and learning in America’s classrooms,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

To better align the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to support college- and career-ready standards, the Obama Administration will integrate new policies into a re-designed ESEA, which will:

• Require all states to adopt and certify that they have college- and career-ready standards in reading and mathematics, which may include common standards developed by a state-led consortium, as a condition of qualifying for Title I funding.
• Include new funding priorities for states with college- and career-ready standards in place, as they compete for federal funds to improve teaching and learning and upgrade curriculum in reading and math. This priority applies to the President’s FY2011 budget request for new Effective Teaching and earning programs in literacy ($450 million) and STEM ($300 million).
• Encourage states, schools districts, and other institutions to better align teacher preparation practices and programs to teaching of college and career-ready standards. This priority supports the President’s FY2011 budget request for a new Teacher and Leaders Pathways program ($405 million).
• Assist states in implementing assessments aligned with college- and career-ready standards, under a new Assessing Achievement program. The President’s FY2011 budget supports $400 million in state grants under this program.
• Support the expansion of the Race to the Top, beyond funding in the Recovery Act, to dedicate $1.35 billion in awards to states and school districts that have college- and career-ready standards in place as a condition of funding.
• Support professional development for teachers, leaders and other school instructional staff to better align instruction to college and career-ready standards. This supports the President’s FY2011 budget request for the Effective Teacher and Leaders state grant program ($2.5 billion).

Fact sheet