As education officials in states using PARCC and Smarter Balanced expected, preliminary results show students’ scores in English/language arts and math plummeted compared with previous years’ assessments, though the results aren’t entirely comparable since they’re aligned to different standards.
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“Among bilingual educators there has been much debate about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)”, Jeff Bale writes in the Fall 2015 issue of Rethinking Schools. The highest scorer in English among similarly sized districts was San Ramon Valley Unified in Danville, at 81 percent.
A Regents committee adopted regulations that would allow teachers, under certain conditions, to appeal performance evaluations that are hurt by poor student performance on the tests.
The state is continuing its exhaustive review of Common Core, and if it can be improved, let’s do it. Those who have argued for more accountability at the state level anxious the move signaled a return to a system that overstates the proportion of students who are on track for success, calling them proficient when in reality they aren’t being prepared well for college or a career.
Parents, teachers and a charter school organization sued, and the state education board joined in the lawsuit.
At the Regents’ meeting, Elia said the Education Department is putting together ways for interested parties to provide input on how the Common Core is and isn’t working in classrooms. However, state leaders opted not to adopt the Next Generation standards, just as they backed away from PARCC, a multi-state testing consortium. Common Core calls for new standards to be set as a goal for students to enhance their academic achievement.
Yet lawmakers in a handful of other states have had a more hard time weeding Common Core standards from public school curriculum.
Jindal has tried to get the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to go along with his anti-Common Core quest.
A grass-roots movement has developed to oppose the Common Core program.
“Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal blocked Common Core funding with executive orders, but was overridden in a state district court”, Estrada said. That was also the same piece of legislation that included language to defund PARCC entirely in the state, making Ohio one of the latest states to dump its Common Core test.
The State Board of Education has announced a public review of its proposed new benchmarks for teaching and learning science in grades 3-8, launching a second review of Tennessee education standards within a year.
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“As momentum rises against the Common Core in Massachusetts, efforts are being made to create a ballot initiative that would withdraw the state from the standards”, HSLDA reports.
