Common Core Meets Education Reform

Common Core Meets Education Reform PDF

Author: Frederick M. Hess

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0807772844

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How can the Common Core complement and not conflict with school improvement efforts already at work across the United States? How can it be seamlessly integrated into accountability systems, teacher preparation and development, charter schools, and educational technology? This timely volume brings together prominent scholars and policy analysts to examine the pressing issues that will mark Common Core implementation. Whether or not you agree with the standards, the Common Core is coming, and this book will help policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders anticipate the challenges and take steps to address them. “Common Core Meets Education Reform raises the hard questions about implementing and sustaining the Common Core State Standards so they don’t end up in the dustbin of abandoned public education reforms. These new standards can help students enormously in becoming problem solvers and critical thinkers—which is essential in the 21st century—but only if teachers become engaged in the rollout, get the support they need, and the fixation on high-stakes testing gives way to a fixation on learning.” —Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers “Adopting the Common Core in a mad dash for federal gold, policymakers across the country blew right past critical questions about how they’d implement the thing. This volume, in stark contrast, meticulously studies the road ahead, seeking out tripwires, pitfalls, and boulders, making it a must-read for anyone who hopes to avoid total Common Core disaster.” —Neal McCluskey, associate director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute, Washington, DC “This balanced, wide-ranging, and deeply informed book is certain to guide educators and reformers through a complex time of transition for U.S. education. But it also turns out to be timely and clarifying as politicians battle over ambitious new academic standards with plenty of heat and smoke but appallingly little illumination. Thanks to the authors for turning on some lights!” —Chester E. Finn, Jr., senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University and president, Thomas B. Fordham Institute Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and serves as executive editor of Education Next. Michael Q. McShane is a research fellow in education policy studies at AEI.

Helping English Learners to Write

Helping English Learners to Write PDF

Author: Carol Booth Olson

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2015-03-27

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0807756334

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Using a rich array of research-based practices, this book will help teachers improve the academic writing of English learners. It provides specific teaching strategies, activities, and extended lessons to develop E Learner students' narrative, informational, and argumentative writing, emphasized in the Common Core State Standards. It also explores the challenges each of these genres pose for English Learners and suggests ways to scaffold instruction to help students become confident and competent academic writers. Showcasing the work of exemplary school teachers who have devoted time and expertise to creating rich learning environments for the secondary classroom Helping English Learners Write includes artifacts and written work produced by students with varying levels of language proficiency as models of what students can accomplish. Each chapter begins with a brief overview and ends with a short summary of the key points.

The Origins of the Common Core

The Origins of the Common Core PDF

Author: D. Owens

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-01-22

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1137482680

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Owens provides a historical analysis of the ideological movements and reform efforts leading to the Common Core State Standards, beginning with conservative criticism of public schools in the 1930s and culminating in a convergence of the political right and left in efforts to systemically reform education based on free market principles.

In Common No More

In Common No More PDF

Author: Arnold F. Shober

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 2016-06-13

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1440837708

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When did the Common Core evolve from pet project to pariah among educators and parents? This book examines the rise and fall of our national education standards from their inception to the present day. Parents, teachers, and political groups have waged debates over the Common Core since the standards' adoption in 2010. This timely examination explores the shifting political alliances related to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, explains why initial national support has faded, and considers the major debates running through the Common Core controversy. The book is organized around four themes of political conflict: federal versus state control, minorities versus majorities, experts versus professionals, and elites versus local preferences. The work reviews the politics of state and national standards, evaluating the political arguments for and against the Common Core: federal overreach, lack of evidence for effectiveness, lack of parental control, lack of teacher input, improper adaptive testing, overtesting, and connections to private education-reform funders and foundations. The work includes a short primer on the Common Core State Standards Initiative as well as on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balance, two state-level organizations that have worked on the standards. An informative appendix presents brief descriptions of major interest groups and think tanks involved with the standards initiative along with a timeline of American educational standards reforms and the Common Core.

Learning versus the Common Core

Learning versus the Common Core PDF

Author: Nicholas Tampio

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2019-03-26

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 1452961581

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An open challenge to Common Core’s drive for uniformity Nicholas Tampio watched as his kindergartner’s class shifted from one where teachers, aides, parents, and students worked hard to create a rewarding educational experience to one in which teachers delivered hours-long lectures using packaged lesson plans. Learning versus the Common Core explains how standards-based education reform is transforming nearly every aspect of public education by looking closely at the standards, the agenda of people pushing standards-based reform, and how these fit within a global pattern of education reform. With a nod to the philosophy of John Dewey, Tampio concludes with a vision of what democratic education can look like today—and how people can form rhizomatic alliances across different political and ethical backgrounds to fight the Common Core. Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

Common Core

Common Core PDF

Author: Orlean Koehle

Publisher:

Published: 2012-01-01

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 9781467549653

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TurnTheHelm.org-----;http://cuacc.org --- "Common Core State Standards Initiative" is the latest education program coming down from the Obama administration, preparing the way for Obama's "Race to the Top Assessments," which will take place in 2014, when all the computer software is in place to test the minds of the nation's children to see how well Common Core (CC) has been sufficiently taught. The test will be given online, as are most of the lessons preparing for it. CC pretends to be a benign "State" program, State-written and controlled. It is touted as being "more rigorous" and will "better prepare students for college and the workplace." However, none of the above is true. CC is really a deceptive Trojan Horse, a national program, written by a national cartel, supported by President Obama and the Federal Department of Education. It is imposing national standards and curriculum on all of the 46 States that have signed onto it. [Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, and Virginia have refused it. Minnesota has adopted the English, but not the math.] CC is not improving education standards but is dumbing them down. The following are facts and reasons why parents and educators should reject Common Core in their States: - No Vote by Congress: Since Obama has his "stimulus money" that he can use "cart blanche" for whatever he desires, he did not go to Congress for permission or funding to come up with a new education program. He just went straight to the governors and enticed them with funding if they would sign on to Common Corp. - No Vote by State Legislators: Legislators have had no vote concerning Common Core either. They were bypassed in the decision to accept it into their States. If this truly is a State and local program why have they been left out? - Amazon.com

Common Core

Common Core PDF

Author: Nicholas Tampio

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1421424649

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How the Common Core standardizes our kids’ education—and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K–12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country’s entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

The Education Invasion

The Education Invasion PDF

Author: Joy Pullmann

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1594038821

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Most Americans had no idea what Common Core was in 2013, according to polls. But it had been creeping into schools nationwide over the previous three years, and children were feeling its effects. They cried over math homework so mystifying their parents could not help them, even in elementary school. They read motley assortments of “informational text” instead of classic literature. They dreaded the high-stakes tests, in unfamiliar formats, that were increasingly controlling their classrooms. How did this latest and most sweeping “reform” of American education come in mostly under the radar? Joy Pullmann started tugging on a thread of reports from worried parents and frustrated teachers, and it led to a big tangle of history and politics, intrigue and arrogance. She unwound it to discover how a cabal of private foundation honchos and unelected public officials cooked up a set of rules for what American children must learn in core K–12 classes, and how the Obama administration pressured states to adopt them. Thus a federalized education scheme took root, despite legal prohibitions against federal involvement in curriculum. Common Core and its testing regime were touted as “an absolute game-changer in public education,” yet the evidence so far suggests that kids are actually learning less under it. Why, then, was such a costly and disruptive agenda imposed on the nation’s schools? Who benefits? And how can citizens regain local self-governance in education, so their children’s minds will be fed a more nourishing intellectual diet and be protected from the experiments of emboldened bureaucrats? The Education Invasion offers answers and remedies.

New and Better Schools

New and Better Schools PDF

Author: Michael Q. McShane

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1475814399

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In the past decade, the number of students enrolled in private school choice programs has grown ten-fold. But granting students access to public financing for their private education has not led to the vibrant marketplace of school options many of its supporters envisioned. If school choice policy is to improve the American education landscape, careful thought must be put in to understand how it can expand existing high quality schools and create new high quality schools to serve more children. New and Better Schools attacks this problem from the perspective of both researchers and practitioners, documenting the hurdles entrepreneurial school leaders face and offering a way forward.

Common Core: Yea & Nay

Common Core: Yea & Nay PDF

Author: Sol Stern

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2014-09-23

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 1594038201

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Why Conservatives Should Stop Opposing the Common Core (Common Core: Yea) by Sol Stern In the past few decades – as progressives gained influence in universities and schools of education – the idea of a coherent, content-rich curriculum has been erased from America’s classrooms. Now, for all its faults, the Common Core State Standards represent the best opportunity we have to restore that structure in our schools. In this Broadside, Sol Stern shows how both sides of the education spectrum have misrepresented the Common Core. The left regards the standards as a threat to their ideological hegemony, while conservative pundits lack a true understanding of what they actually provide. Americans should see the Common Core as an opening to restore academic content to the nation’s schools and reverse the influence of educational progressivism in our classrooms. Why the Common Core Is a Bad Idea (Common Core: Nay) by Peter W. Wood The latest effort to fix America’s schools has backfired. In 2007, an elite group of would-be reformers devised a brilliant political strategy to transform education without ever facing public scrutiny. Their bold strategy, which became the Common Core State Standards, was astonishingly successful – for a while. Then the American public took notice. In this Broadside, Peter W. Wood explains how the Common Core actually lowers standards while pretending to raise them and chokes off local control of our schools in favor of domination by the federal government and private groups. Bankrolled by the Gates Foundation, favored by political elites, and supported by true believers on both sides of the political spectrum, the Common Core once appeared unstoppable. But it can be stopped, and this book shows us how.