ND Curriculum Initiative

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Looking for more information about the North Dakota Common Core State Standards?

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Montana is the latest state to adopt the Common Core

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

5 Myths of the Common Core

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Math groups launch Common Core Coalition

The group consists of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics , the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics , the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators , the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics , the Council of Chief State School Officers , the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium , and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers .

They said in a statement that coordinating efforts will offer “the best possible support” to the 44 states and the District of Columbia that have agreed to adopt the new benchmarks.

“The biggest challenge is that, historically, every state has had its own math standards, and teachers have been used to their own standards, and states are used to assessing their own standards,” Mike Shaughnessy, NCTM president and chair of the coalition, told Education Daily®. “Inertia’s a difficult thing to overcome.”

Last year, NCTM and other leaders convened a joint task force to decide what the math community can do to help school systems effectively segue to the Common Core.

“One of the recommendations was that there should be some kind of ongoing group that sort of keeps an eye on, monitors, and then helps review and make suggestions about possible updates and changes down the road for Common Core standards for mathematics,” Shaughnessy said.

The coalition said in an announcement that its focus includes:

1. Providing a means to review, research, develop, and communicate common messages throughout the implementation and assessment of Common Core math.

2. Providing content and assessment expertise and advice from the math education community for the purposes of helping the SBAC and PARCC assessment consortia develop content frameworks.

3. Collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information about implementation and assessment processes to inform future revisions of the benchmarks.

“There are a lot of teachers that are worried” about how the new benchmarks and new tests that are currently being developed to measure those standards will impact meeting NCLB requirements, Shaughnessy explained.

“For the first time around, it’s almost for sure that the results are not going to be stellar with so many changes going on,” he added. “People are really worried about academic yearly progress.”

Coalition leaders are meeting in October to discuss, among other issues, ways it can help its members ease some of the fears associated with high-stakes testing, he said.

Meanwhile, Shaughnessy said he hopes federal leaders will soften the more punitive measures associated with assessments in a reauthorized ESEA.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

ND K-12 Professional Development Blog