Catherine Gewertz writes in the Education Week (4/18) “Curriculum Matters” blog that a new study released Thursday by the Center for American Progress “cautions that more research is needed before new common-core assessments can be used as valid and reliable measures of teacher effectiveness.” Gewertz notes that the study acknowledges the “intuitive appeal” to using tests from the Common Core consortia in teacher evaluations, but argues that they were not designed for this purpose. She writes that several states are planning to use the tests in that manner and notes that ED “had exactly these kinds of uses in mind in 2010 when it invited groups of states” to seek funding for designing Common Core-aligned tests.
California Panel Struggles To Define “College And Career Ready”
EdSource Today (4/18) reports on California’s Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee, which is working on including both career and college readiness in the Academic Performance Index, “the primary measure of school effectiveness.” While the index has generally been based on standardized test scores, a state law passed in 2012 requires that 40% of the API score cover “measures of career and college readiness – an amorphous and poorly defined term that the committee is struggling to quantify.” The education group Linked Learning Alliance advocated before the committee for “programs that integrate academics with career experience,” arguing that students in these programs are better prepared for college and develop an array of “soft skills.” Committee co-chair Kenn Young, superintendent of the Riverside County Office of Education, said the newly reformed API “is not going to be a perfect vehicle.” David Conley, a University of Oregon professor who also presented before the committee, said reforming API would be “an evolutionary journey.”
Social And Emotional Learning Helps Academic Achievement
The District Administration (4/18, DeNisco) reports that a study published in the American Educational Research Journal in March says that Responsive Classroom, “a widely used K6 teaching technique that integrates social and emotional learning into the school day,” improves academic achievement. The technique has been used for about 25 years, but “this is the first comprehensive study of its impact on student achievement.” Between 2008 and 2011, Sara Rimm-Kaufman, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, randomly selected elementary school teachers in 12 Virginia schools for training in the technique. After three years, math and reading scores improved by 12% against a control group. The results were consistent, even with students who received reduced price or free school lunches.
California Teacher Tenure Case Seen As Potential Precedent
The New York Times (4/17, Medina, Subscription Publication) reports that for more than two months, attorneys have been arguing in a California court “whether California’s laws governing teacher tenure, firing and layoffs violate students’ constitutional right to an education,” and by early July, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu “will deliver the first legal ruling on the case, which has attracted national attention.” In many states, “opponents of tenure rules, who have tried and largely failed to bring about changes through state legislatures, are looking to this case as a test of whether taking their arguments to court could prove more successful.”
Nonprofit Sues California Over Teacher Retention Laws
Stateline (4/2, Lu) reports on the trial Vergara v. California. Nonprofit group Students Matter brought the lawsuit on behalf of nine students. The plaintiffs allege that the state’s employment laws “leave so many ineffective teachers on the job that some students many of them low-income and minority fail to receive the education guaranteed by the state constitution.” Teachers unions contend that inadequate education is not due to poor quality teachers, but rather “inadequate resources, large class sizes and lack of parental involvement.” Sandi Jacobs, managing director of state policy for NCTQ, said California is one of few states that doesn’t consider student performance when evaluating teachers. Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy, cautioned that the models used to measure teacher performance may be unreliable. The article also considers employment policies and performance incentives in schools across the US.
New SAT Moves Toward Testing Analytic Ability
The New York Times (4/16, Lewin, Subscription Publication) reports that the revised SAT’s vocabulary questions “will no longer include obscure words.” Instead, the test will focus on what the College Board describes as “high utility” words that appear in multiple contexts across disciplines. The new test will also require students to interpret graphs for “analyzing science and social science texts.” College officials praised the changes which tested students on what they should be learning in high school, but Christoph Guttentag, Duke University’s admissions director, added that “we’ll still have to examine the evidence to see if there’s any change in the predictive validity within our context.” Many admissions officials questioned the College Board’s claims that the new tests would eliminate the gap between high and low income students’ scores.
New SAT Will Focus More On Algebra And Reading Comprehension, Less On Vocabulary
Politico (4/16, Simon) reports on the recent changes to the SAT. In addition to noting the changes to vocabulary testing, the article says that “the exam now focuses intently on algebra” for its math section, adding that the essay is optional. The article adds that students may find new questions “confounding,” as the new test mimics Common Core exams and the first wave of students taking the SAT in 2016 will have little exposure to the Common Core tests. College Board President David Coleman said, “We aim to offer worthy challenges, not artificial obstacles.” The article speculates that Coleman seeks to revitalize the SAT brand, which has lost market share to the ACT. The article also provides sample questions from the new exam.
Editorial: STEM Topics Important For Students
An editorial in the Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram (4/14) notes that students at Englewood Elementary School participated in various activities “to expose them to science, technology, engineering, art and math in a fun way.” The paper argues that students exposed to STEM fields at a young age “will be more likely to develop an appreciation for those” subjects. The editorial also notes that Nash Community College will also host several science and technology themed events over the summer for middle school and high school students. The Telegram concludes that it is important for students to have “knowledge and appreciation of STEM topics” in order to participate in the global economy.
Common Core Language Arts Curriculum Focuses On Close Reading
NPR’s Morning Edition (4/9, 5:08 a.m. EDT) broadcast a segment on the controversy surrounding the Common Core Standards for English, which are focused on “tough reading, making sure kids are able to form ideas about what they read and to support those ideas in writing with evidence.” The segment describes a classroom lesson in which middle school students in Stratford, Vermont exercise “close reading,” noting that students “get a written assignment just about every week, based on readings you might easily find on a college syllabus.” A transcript of this story can be seen here (4/10, Albright).
Paper Argues For Overhaul In ELL Teacher Preparation Under Common Core
Lesli A. Maxwell writes at the Education Week (4/8) “Learning the Language” blog that a new paper published by the TESOL International Association, a professional organization for ELL teachers, argues that under the Common Core, “English-as-a-second-language teachers must become more involved in the central enterprise of teaching and supporting academic content for ELL students than has traditionally been the case.” The paper says that this will require “major shifts” in teacher preparation, including understanding “the language and language practices that are specific to different subject areas and disciplines.”
Common Core Promotes Writing Across Various Subjects, Citing Other Texts
In part of a series about Common Core implementation at Belle Chasse Primary School in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, the Hechinger Report (4/8) reports on how writing instruction is changing under the Common Core. While students in early grades had previously been assigned writing exercises based on “personal experience,” the Report notes that assignments are now based on “citing ‘textual evidence.’” The article notes that the Common Core Standards “stress the importance of students’ [writing] across all subject areas,” citing evidence from readings.
Paper Argues For Overhaul In ELL Teacher Preparation Under Common Core
Lesli A. Maxwell writes at the Education Week (4/8) “Learning the Language” blog that a new paper published by the TESOL International Association, a professional organization for ELL teachers, argues that under the Common Core, “English-as-a-second-language teachers must become more involved in the central enterprise of teaching and supporting academic content for ELL students than has traditionally been the case.” The paper says that this will require “major shifts” in teacher preparation, including understanding “the language and language practices that are specific to different subject areas and disciplines.”
Majority Of California Students Graduate Unprepared For College
Palm Springs (CA) Desert Sun (4/6, Leff) reports less than 40 percent of high school students in California are “completing the requirements to be eligible for the state’s public universities.” A senior fellow at the state’s Public Policy Institute estimates that if the trend continues, California will have a million less college graduates than it needs in 2025. John Rogers, director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, says when only considering those who graduate and do it in four years, the statistic drops to 30 percent statewide, 20 percent for Latinos, and 18 percent for African-Americans. As Latino children are now a majority of California’s public school students, many are “framing the problem as a civil rights issue.”
Study: Sexual Violence Occurs In Middle School Without Teachers Noticing
The Huffington Post (4/6, Klein) reports that “a substantial amount of sexual violence in middle school” happens in the classroom. A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign observed that, of those surveyed, 27% of girls and 25% of boys “reported facing a form of sexual violence on middle school grounds in the past year.” Dr. Dorothy Espelage, co-author of the study and professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois, said the types of abuse described are “a precursor to teen dating violence.” She noted that while teachers were trained to deal with bullying, they were “less educated” on sexual harassment, and school anti-bullying policies “may fail to properly consider whether the student misconduct also results in discriminatory harassment.” Espalage called for combining bullying prevention programs with sexual harassment prevention programs.
Common Core Debate Analyzed
A Scripps Howard News Service (4/3, Kambhampats) article gives a primer into the origins of and the controversy surrounding the Common Core Standards. The piece touches on how classroom instruction is different under the standards, the role of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in creating them, and how they were a response to concerns “that a large number of high school graduates need remedial college help.” The piece notes that President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “signaled to states that they should embrace these standards or similar if they hoped to win a grant through the Race to the Top program in 2009.” The piece explores states’ adoption and implementation of the standards and describes the growing backlash and controversy surrounding them.
Nonprofit Sues California Over Teacher Retention Laws
Stateline (4/2, Lu) reports on the trial Vergara v. California. Nonprofit group Students Matter brought the lawsuit on behalf of nine students. The plaintiffs allege that the state’s employment laws “leave so many ineffective teachers on the job that some students many of them low-income and minority fail to receive the education guaranteed by the state constitution.” Teachers unions contend that inadequate education is not due to poor quality teachers, but rather “inadequate resources, large class sizes and lack of parental involvement.” Sandi Jacobs, managing director of state policy for NCTQ, said California is one of few states that doesn’t consider student performance when evaluating teachers. Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy, cautioned that the models used to measure teacher performance may be unreliable. The article also considers employment policies and performance incentives in schools across the US
New America Media On Technology’s Impact On Education
The New America Media (4/2, Florez) reports that technology is already having a huge impact on education in the United States in terms of the needs of the students and school curriculums. The New American Media reports technology has created a gap between high and low income schools. According to the New American Media, “students in” low-income “schools typically access the Internet less often than students in wealthier areas, while nearly two-thirds of teachers working in low-income schools said they wanted more technology in the classroom.” Meanwhile, those who have the resources are demanding more Internet bandwidth, “in part because more schools are using online resources.” The New American Media also reports that “by 2022, the Federal government expects 1 million more tech jobs than workers available to fill them,” which means that schools across the country will need to place a greater emphasis on STEM subjects.
US Students Above Average In Problem Solving Skills
PBS’ NewsHour (4/2) reports online that the Programme for International Student Assessment has released the first results of “a new, international test of problem-solving skills given to 15-year-olds,” noting that the report shows that “American students performed just above average.” Noting that the test was administered alongside the “traditional” math, science, and reading PISA tests, the article says that when those results were released, “Education Secretary Arne Duncan called US students’ middling results on the traditional exams a sign of the country’s ‘educational stagnation.’” The article briefly describes the “open-ended interactive problems” on the test.
Common Core Drives Education Programs To Raise Standards
The US News & World Report (3/31) reports that the implementation of the Common Core standards has driven teacher prep programs to create new standards for incoming candidates. The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation changed accreditation requirements for teaching programs last summer, “raising the bar for admission and mandating substantive clinical work.” Schools will also be required to “report annually on teacher effectiveness” by 2016. Additionally, 34 states and the District of Columbia worked with Stanford University and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education to develop edTPA, a teacher assessment tool that some states are using for accreditation. The article notes that some teaching programs are following medical school models by creating residency programs.
Krugman Argues That There Is No Serious “Skills Gap”
In his column for the New York Times (3/31, Subscription Publication), Paul Krugman that the belief that the nation “suffers from a severe ‘skills gap’ is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true,” but really is a “zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.” Unfortunately, Krugman writes, the “skills myth” is “having dire effects on real-world policy,” as there is little focus on “disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action” by the Fed. Krugman says that by “blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate.”