U.S. Businesses Stand United for Common Core | Urge RNC to Support
In a letter to Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, John Engler, former Michigan governor and current president of the Business Roundtable, made a strong case as to why the Republican Party should support the Common Core State Standards. Governor Engler urged the support of the Republican Party on behalf of 200 or more chief executive officers from across the country.
From the business leaders perspective, Governor Engler stressed to Chairman Priebus the critical relevance of the Common Core State Standards. In addition, he clarified that the Common Core State Standards are not national standards, but, in fact, standards designed by each state and according to specific needs.
Read More →Teacher Appreciation | 365
By Bob Wehling
Last week, the nation was celebrating teachers. If we lived in a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a Teacher Appreciation Week. Everyone would show appreciation to teachers every day of the year.
I wish everyone had the same opportunity I’ve had to visit schools and teachers across the U.S. and in many other countries. They would quickly understand that our teachers have one of the toughest jobs on the planet and one deserving of our deep appreciation.
Read More →Teaching is at the Heart of Education
By The Hunt Team
To round out Teacher Appreciation Week, The Hunt Team is digging in the Jim Hunt archives and posting an excerpt from the former governor’s speech to the National Board Certified Teachers and National Board For Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Board of Directors on October 19, 1995. Though a small portion of his remarks, it is a testament to Governor Hunt’s long-time commitment to teachers and the teaching profession.
While the landmark 1983 “A National at Risk” report focused the national spotlight on the troubled state of American Education and provoked a wave of reform efforts, most of these initiatives left out a critical element of the education equation: the classroom teacher. Teaching is at the heart of education, and the single most important action we as a nation can take to improve our children’s learning is to strengthen the ability, knowledge, and professionalism of our teachers. Knowing this, the task force called for the establishment of a National Board for Professional teaching Standards, and there has not been a times since then that I have wavered in my commitment to see this idea turn into reality.
Read More →Thanking Teachers
By Ron Thorpe, President and CEO, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
One of the best parts of my job is meeting National Board Certified Teachers across the country, usually at ceremonies held to honor their accomplishment. On these occasions, I get to thank them for what they do for our children.
Every day teachers go into classrooms with knowledge, skills, and commitment to do work that is arguably the most complex and unpredictable that anyone does anywhere. They work with children who fall across a wide developmental spectrum and who come from families who fall across an equally wide spectrum of situations. They do this work within a system that makes a difficult job nearly impossible with at least three layers of bureaucracy – federal, state, and local – telling them what to do. Moreover, the expectations of these government levels can change in an instant. Engineers and architects, doctors and lawyers – none of them are subjected to the kind of policy whiplash we visit upon teachers.
Read More →AFT President Calls for Making Common Core Standards Work before They Count
By Ann Bradley, Director, AFT Innovation Fund
AFT President Randi Weingarten is calling for a moratorium on high stakes associated with Common Core assessments until states and districts have worked with educators to properly implement them. These standards, she said, will result in one of two outcomes: They will lead to a revolution in teaching and learning, or end up in the dustbin of abandoned reforms.
Read More →Uncommon Learning in a Time of Core Standards
By Kent Williamson, Director, National Center for Literacy Education
New research from the National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE) shows that educators in every subject area and role are eager to work together to deepen literacy learning—77% of educators, principals, and librarians agreed that developing student literacy is one of the most important responsibilities they have. It also showed that educators are committed to common-sense changes to improve teaching and learning practices: they most value time to co-plan with colleagues to create new lessons or instructional strategies and to analyze how their students are developing and what they can do together to advance progress.
Read More →Commentary, Encouraging Collaboration, Literacy Learning, Survey, Teachers
Common Core and College Completion: A Shared Agenda for K-12 and Higher Education
By Jacqueline E. King, Director, Higher Education Collaboration, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
While K-12 education has been pre-occupied with implementing the Common Core State Standards, higher education has been engaged in its own reform agenda aimed at radically increasing the number of Americans with high quality postsecondary credentials.
Read More →NC Superintendent’s shines light on CCSS history, future
North Carolina’s State Superintendent June Atkinson shares her first-hand knowledge of how the Common Core State Standards were created in her blog, “Common Core – It’s About Reading and Math.” Superintendent Atkinson explains that she met with about 45 other state superintendents in Chicago a few years ago to discuss how they could work together to determine what students should know in mathematics and English language arts.
Read More →Republicans Denounce Common Core in Opposition to Business Roundtable
In The New York Times editorial, “Republicans Versus the Business Community,” editorial writer Brent Staples conveys that the Republican National Committee’s recent criticism of the Common Core State Standards has now placed them in a compromising position with businesses.
Read More →Extending Quality Technology for Effective Teaching and Learning
By Todd Roberts, Ed.D., Chancellor North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Faced with new standards and decreased access to professional development offerings, more and more teachers are taking a do-it-yourself approach to professional learning. They’re scouring the Web for quality content, often using Google to find materials.
Unfortunately for these proactive professionals, many initiatives designed to address the new standards have not yet produced the large collections of aligned materials needed to effectively implement a new curriculum. The quality of content found in a broad search of the Internet varies, and educators are spending much of their limited planning time slogging through content that hasn’t been evaluated or slick vendor sites designed to convince them that an out-of-the-box solution is just a $450 check away.
Read More →Commentary, Curriculum, Digital Learning, North Carolina, Teachers