Opening The Common Core

Open the door to success with the CCSS This book shows how to leverage the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to equip all students—not just high achievers—for college and career. The authors helped lead their district in closing achievement gaps and increasing the number of students who completed four-year college programs. The results of their efforts show a remarkable increase in both excellence and equity in the content areas due to applying the authors’ research-based ACES framework: Acceleration rather than remediation Critical thinking Equity in education for all students Support Educators will find practical strategies that are applied and developed in model lessons linked to the CCSS and KSUS standards.

Middle-school students must be able to write explanatory/informational, argument, and narrative genre pieces and respond to literature, both for standardized tests and, more importantly, real-world writing. With a balanced literacy approach, Wolfe provides core instruction, teaching strategies, and mini-lessons on these text types, each of which can be delivered in a four- to six-week time period. Each mini-lesson includes applicable Common Core Standards, materials lists, overviews, planning tips, procedures (including modeling, guided practice, and independent practice opportunities), reading connections, formative assessments, and reproducible graphic organizers for scaffolding. Prerequisite skill overviews and rubrics--both analytic for formative assessments and holistic for summative assessments--are also provided for each genre unit to simplify your teaching and ensure student success.

For the first time in history Americans face the prospect of a unified set of national standards for K-12 education. While this goal sounds reasonable, and Common Core has been presented as a state-led effort, it is anything but. This book analyzes Common Core from the standpoint of its deleterious effects on curriculum--language arts, mathematics, history, and more--as well as its questionable legality, its roots in the aggressive spending of a few wealthy donors, its often-underestimated costs, and the untold damage it will wreak on American higher education. At a time when more and more people are questioning the wisdom of federally-mandated one-size-fits-all solutions, Drilling through the Core offers well-considered arguments for stopping Common Core in its tracks.

It's not what students know, but what they do with what they know that is important Schools are changing in response to this reality, and in Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards, Bob Lenz, Justin Wells, and Sally Kingston draw on the example of the Envision Education schools, as well as other leading schools around the country, to show how the concept of deeper learning can meet the need for students who are both college and career ready and engaged in their own education. In this book, the authors explain how project-based learning can blend with Common Core-aligned performance assessment for deeper learning. You'll discover how many schools have successfully made the transition from traditional, teacher-centered learning to project-based, deeper learning and find many practical ideas for implementation. Companion DVD and website include videos showing how to implement deeper learning strategies in the classroom Evidence-based descriptions show why deeper learning is right for students Performance assessment experts explain how to align assessments with Common Core by shifting the emphasis from knowing to doing Extensive game plan section provides step-by-step guidance for change Schools are complex organizations, and transformation involves all of the stakeholders, from students to superintendents. But as this book shows, there are amazing benefits to be realized when everyone commits to diving deeper into learning.

How the Common Core standardizes our kids’ education—and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K–12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country’s entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

This teacher guide illustrates how to sustain successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics, grades K–2. Discover what students should learn and how they should learn it at each grade level. Comprehensive research-affirmed analysis tools and strategies will help you and your collaborative team develop and assess student demonstrations of deep conceptual understanding and procedural fluency

Lead a Common Core implementation that closes achievement gaps! This illuminating book shows how central Common Core tenets—rigor, meaningful curricula and assessment, and higher order thinking—can become educational realities for every child in your school or district. This timely resource enables readers to: Understand how underlying beliefs related to historically-underserved students may create roadblocks to effective instruction Create a school culture where diversity is valued, including developing relevant professional learning Compile and analyze meaningful data that enables faculty to better reach students from all backgrounds Advance the goal of college and career-readiness for all learners