Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Education Week: Teacher Surveys Aimed at Swaying Policymakers

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

NJ RTTP application

The Federal Government's review of NJ's Race To The Top application is available for public review here

It should NOT be surprising to learn that NJ's state deparrtment was criticized for a LACK of CLARITY and COHERENECE.

Below is the exact quote:

The applicant [NJ department of education] articulated a thoughtful reform agenda aligned to the four education goals The path to achieving its goal however, lacks clarity and coherence. The expected outcomes for achievement and changes, as outlined in the plan lack rigor due to clarity.

Education Week: N.J. Gov. Offers Wage-Freeze Incentive to Schools

Monday, March 29, 2010

Delaware and Tennessee Win Race to Top

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Professor Terry Yung testified to the NJ State Board of Education on March 17th.
His full testimony can be seen here.
It is almost laughable and down right embarrasing to read his testimony.
He wrote:

I found it was amazing that when the students cannot do two digit multiplication, then some teacher created “Lattice Multiplication” so that students do not need to memorize the times table.

This is a math professor who thinks a teacher invented Lattice Multiplication.

Well Dr. Yung, Lattice Multiplication was invented thousands of years ago by the Egyptians. I hope Yung don't teach History of Mathematics at Kean. It is any wonder why we DON'T want mathematicians anywhere near K-12 education.

Florida Senate voted to shift shift to merit pay for teachers - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Florida Senate voted to shift shift to merit pay for teachers - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Fordham Foundation review of Common Core

The Fordham Institute's expert reviewers have analyzed the draft Common Core K-12 education standards (made public on March 10) according to rigorous criteria. Their analyses lead to a grade of A- for the draft mathematics standards. See review here.
Note that this is the anti-reformist group that gave the NJ standards a D grade and the Fordham foundation is constantly referred to be the anti-reformist crazies in NJ.

An Open Letter to Arne Duncan

Monday, March 22, 2010

Comments Pouring in on Common Standards, But You Won't See Them

Friday, March 19, 2010

A New Vision of Career Technical Education

Education Week: Nurturing Talent: How the U.S. Succeeds

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Is 'Career Ready' Getting the Short End of the Stick?

NCTM position on Common Core

NCTM's position on the common core is available here.

Although the Council has been included and involved in this process, the current draft of these standards raises some concerns. Although some elements of the current draft are consistent with NCTM’s positions—particularly, those articulated in the Council’s Standards publications—other elements need further development and interpretation. NCTM’s public comments on the current draft will be posted soon on the NCTM Web site. Throughout this process NCTM has made the following points:

A challenging and coherent curriculum, focused in scope and deep in meaning, is a critically important step in learning mathematics with understanding.

NCTM’s official positions, particularly as delineated in the Council’s landmark Standards publications, address much of the content that is included in the Common Core Standards. These positions find clearest expression in NCTM’s Guiding Principles for Mathematics Curriculum and Assessment, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making, andCurriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence.

Problem solving, reasoning and sense making, connections within mathematics and to other contexts, mathematical representations, communication, and the use of technology are essential elements of school mathematics and need to be represented and well integrated in the Common Core Standards.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative

We have grave concerns about the core standards for young children now being written by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The draft standards made public in January conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.

We have no doubt that promoting language and mathematics is crucial to closing the achievement gap. As written, however, the proposed standards raise the following concerns:

Such standards will lead to long hours of instruction in literacy and math. Young children learn best in active, hands-on ways and in the context of meaningful real-life experiences. New research shows that didactic instruction of discrete reading and math skills has already pushed play-based learning out of many kindergartens. But the current proposal goes well beyond most existing state standards in requiring, for example, that every kindergartner be able to write “all upper- and lowercase letters” and “read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.”

They will lead to inappropriate standardized testing. Current state standards for young children have led to the heavy use of standardized tests in kindergarten and the lower grades, despite their unreliability for assessing children under age eight. The proposed core standards will intensify inappropriate testing in place of broader observational assessments that better serve young children’s needs.

Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out other important areas of learning. Young children’s learning must go beyond literacy and math. They need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges, and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills. Overuse of didactic instruction and testing cuts off children’s initiative, curiosity, and imagination, limiting their later engagement in school and the workplace, not to mention responsible citizenship. And it interferes with the growth of healthy bodies and essential sensory and motor skills—all best developed through playful and active hands-on learning.

There is little evidence that such standards for young children lead to later success. While an introduction to books in early childhood is vital, research on the links between the intensive teaching of discrete reading skills in kindergarten and later success is inconclusive at best. Many of the countries with top-performing high-school students do not begin formal schooling until age six or seven. We must test these ideas more thoroughly before establishing nationwide policies and practices.

We therefore call on the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to suspend their current drafting of standards for children in kindergarten through grade three.

We further call for the creation of a consortium of early childhood researchers, developmental psychologists, pediatricians, cognitive scientists, master teachers, and school leaders to develop comprehensive guidelines for effective early care and teaching that recognize the right of every child to a healthy start in life and a developmentally appropriate education.

Education Week: Stagnating NAEP Math Scores Seen as No Surprise

Monday, March 15, 2010

Education Week: Administration Unveils ESEA Renewal Blueprint

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Proposal sets new standards for schools in New Jersey

See article from Gloucester County Times here on the common core standards.
Willa Spicer, Deputy Commissioner, is quoted often (actually she is the only one quoted) and Ms. Spicer thinks the standards are just fantastic. Did she even read them?