Common Core Implementation

We've outsourced this post on Common Core State Standards to guest contributor Christina Hank. Christina is a Curriculum Coordinator for Medina City Schools. You can read more of her work at turnonyourbrain.wordpress.com, and you should definitely follow her on Twitter at @ChristinaHank

There’s been a lot of confusion around what’s happening to curriculum in Ohio education. Let’s break it down into two pieces: standards and assessments.

STANDARDS

Standards are the platform for everything that is taught in a school district, we go above and beyond I the standards to address all the needs of children, such as social and emotional growth. By themselves, standards do not impact anything in our classrooms; they are documents that sit on shelves. It is in how we implement the standards and integrate their intent into our teaching practices that they have any role in teaching and learning.

So, what are the standards in Ohio?

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)—The CCSS are a set of standards in grades kindergarten through twelve in English language arts and mathematics. Many states have adopted this as a common set of standards.

Are included in…

Ohio’s New Learning Standards—Ohio’s New Learning Standards is the title given to all of Ohio’s standards in all contents (including the CCSS in English language arts and math).

ASSESSMENTS

Standards are not the same as their assessments, even though we are seeing “Common Core” used interchangeably with everything that is happening right now. Though the assessments of our new learning standards are rooted in the standards and attempting to assess the intent of these standards, the assessments are a separate piece of educational reform.

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)—PARCC is one of two national testing consortia develop assessments for the CCSS in English language arts and math. Ohio and 21 other states belong to this consortium, which means Ohio’s students will be taking the same test as students in all of those other states (unlike Ohio’s current assessments with are only taken by students in the state). In each subject (English language arts and math), the test is structured to have two optional tests in the fall (may not be finished by 2014-2015) and two tests in the spring. The first of these spring tests in each subject will be around March and will be a performance-based assessment. The second of these will be in May and will be an End of Year test.

Are included in…

Next Generation Assessments—This all-encompassing term includes both Ohio-developed tests in social studies and science as well as the PARCC tests in English language arts and math.

TIMELINE

As it is almost the start of the 2013-2014 school year (where is the summer going?!), we’re entering the final year of Ohio Achievement/Graduation Assessments and getting ready for our first year of Next Generation Assessments in 2014-2015.

	Assessments
English	2014-2015: MS: PARCC Tests for grades 3-8 (National) HS: PARCC End of Course exams (National)
Mathematics	2014-2015: MS: PARCC Tests for grades 3-8 (National) HS: PARCC EOC in Alg 1, Geo, Alg 2 OR Math 1, Math 2, Math 3 depending on student track (National)
Social Studies	2013-2014: MS: Continue with OAA in MS. HS ONLY: our self-created EOC Assessment in U.S. History and Government 2014-2015: MS: Grade 4 and 6, grade-level tests (not cumulative). New SS tests will be "Next Generation Assessments" reflective of PARCC tests HS: State created EOC in U.S. History and Government
Science	2014-2015: MS: Grade 5 and 8, grade-level tests (not cumulative). New science tests will be "Next Generation Assessments" reflective of PARCC tests HS: State created EOC in Biology and Physical Science

Two Visions

Education historian Diane Ravitch, writing about the Chicago teachers strike, but has lots of relevance across the board

The Chicago Teachers Union has a different vision: it wants smaller classes, more social workers, air-conditioning in the sweltering buildings where summer school is conducted, and a full curriculum, with teachers of arts and foreign languages in every school. Some schools in Chicago have more than forty students in a class, even in kindergarten. There are 160 schools without libraries; more than 40 percent have no teachers of the arts.

What do the teachers want? The main sticking point is the seemingly arcane issue of teacher evaluations. The mayor wants student test scores to count heavily in determining whether a teacher is good (and gets a bonus) or bad (and is fired). The union points to research showing that test-based evaluation is inaccurate and unfair. Chicago is a city of intensely segregated public schools and high levels of youth violence. Teachers know that test scores are influenced not only by their instruction but by what happens outside the classroom.

The strike has national significance because it concerns policies endorsed by the current administration; it also raises issues found all over the country. Not only in Chicago but in other cities, teachers insist that their students need smaller classes and a balanced curriculum. Reformers want more privately-managed charter schools, even though they typically get the same results as public schools. Charter schools are a favorite of the right because almost 90 percent of them are non-union. Teachers want job protection so that they will not be fired for capricious reasons and have academic freedom to teach controversial issues and books. Reformers want to strip teachers of any job protections.

Encounrage you to read the whole piece, here.

Education News for 07-17-2012

Statewide Stories of the Day

• Schools facing reading issues (News-Sun)

More than one in five third-graders in a dozen Miami Valley school districts were not proficient in reading last year, according to 2010-11 report card data. In Dayton and Jefferson Twp., about 45 percent failed to meet that state standard, while in Springfield it was about 37 percent and Middletown, 30 percent. School districts are taking steps this summer to prepare for the new state third-grade reading guarantee, which would generally require districts to hold back third-graders starting in 2013-14 if they are not reading at grade level. Read more...

• Ohio’s education challenge (Vindicator)

Gov. John Kasich, a man who does not shy away from challenge, is saying that he intends to work with the legislature to come up with a better way to fund the state’s schools, likely in time for next year’s new state budget. Meanwhile, members of the General Assembly are doing the homework needed to craft reform. Parents who think their district is doing great might be shocked to find out that, compared with national achievement-test scores, in many cases student performance is substandard. Read more...

Local Issues

• Backpack program helps parents feed kids (Middletown Journal)

MIDDLETOWN — It sounded like she was talking about more than a plastic grocery bag full of six meals for her children. “This is a godsend,” Julie Oglesbay, 44, a mother of two children, said Friday afternoon at the Catalina Manufactured Home Community. “As a mother, you always want your kids’ stomachs full. This helps tremendously.” Because of a $1 million grant from Governor John Kasich’s office, a Summer Weekend Backpack Meals program was established this year in the state, including the Middletown area. Read more...

• Canton City Schools students learn guitar in summer program (Repository)

CANTON — Newly formed non-profit, Ohio Regional Music Arts and Cultural Outreach (ORMACO) teamed up with Canton City Schools’ Arts Academy at Summit, the University of Akron’s guitar department and McKinley High School to offer summer guitar lessons to City Schools students. Led by Arts Academy music instructor George Dean and James Marron, guitar professor at the University of Akron, the program will culminate in a free concert for the public. Read more...

Editorial

• The Creativity-Testing Conflict (Education Week)

Doublethink is "to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them," according to George Orwell, who coined the phrase in his novel 1984. American education policymakers have apparently entered the zone of doublethink. They want future Americans to be globally competitive, to out-innovate others, and to become job-creating entrepreneurs. Read more...

Un-Accountable Charters

There's so many things wrong with the elements of this story its hard to know where to begin, and even harder to understand why Republican lawmakers want to reduce an already weakened oversight system for charter schools

State payments to two charter schools will resume later this week, now that the state auditor's office has finally been able to complete audits.

The Auditors reports are due in a few weeks and we'll be sure to bring news of those findings to you. But back to the story of charter schools so messed up (and that's the best case scenario) that they can't perform basic accounting functions. The cost of such incompetence?

Teachers and other employees have gone without paychecks since the funds were cut off. Charter schools, which are public but run independent of districts, get most of their money from the state.

They may be public right now, but if HB153 passes, we'll see a proliferation of private schools receiving public money, with their accounts hidden from public view.

All three schools are sponsored by the Cleveland-based Ashe Culture Center, which is responsible for monitoring academics and finances.

Rainbow said the Arts Academies' relationship with Ashe had become "very strained" and they gave notice in January that they would seek a new sponsor.
[...]
The Education Department has been trying to take away Ashe's sponsorship authority since December 2009, mainly because of financial issues. The final decision will be up to the state school board after an independent hearing officer rules.

Audits are still under way at two other Ashe-sponsored schools -- Elite Academy of the Arts and Lion of Judah Academy, both in Cleveland -- that also were declared unauditable in November.

Ohio already has too many sponsors, and soon if changes are not made to HB153, even more - with the accounts hidden from public view inside of for-profit corporations. Only those who seek to profit from this undemocratic scheme are supporting it. As the Ohio Senate debates the budget bill, we'll have a clear view of just how many legislators the vampire squid tentacles have gripped.

The Columbus Dispatch has already been ensnared by the lobbyist for White Hat Management, the very person who helped the GOP House Majority write the current HB153 charter school wild west provisions.