Common Core Alabama blog was silent for a little while, but it's back and operational once again!   The "reins" have been turned over to me, Vickey Sullivan, Madison County Schools's District Instructional Technology Specialist.  Principal Scott Weeks from Owens Cross Roads School did a fabulous job of creating the blog and posting regularly about CCRS in Madison County and I appreciate all the groundwork he has done for this blog.

We will re-start slow and keep building.  There will be guest bloggers from time to time from the District CCRS Team--sharing all they have learned in regional CCRS meetings. 

So, please share this blog with anyone across Madison County (and across the state of Alabama) as we share teaching/learning strategies, tips and ideas about CCRS in the classroom.

Just a reminder:  Check out the CCRS web page, located on Madison County's website.  Janet Slaughter, our district CCRS leader and Title I specialist, created this page for easy access to CCRS resources for Madison County teachers.  Melissa Mann, a teacher from Moores Mill Intermediate, is currently updating the website.  Here's a link to that website:  CCRS Resources.

 Have a great day!  I'll leave you with this inspiring word from the current Alabama Teacher of the Year.

Vickey

12 MYTHS and FACTS about the Alabama College and Career-Ready Standards

Originally posted in:

Alabama Education News

February 2013 · Issue II · page 2

 

MYTH: Parents will lose control of their children’s K-12 education under the

Common Core State Standards Initiative.

FACT: There is no change in parental control from Alabama’s previous

standards to the College- and Career-Ready Standards based

on the Common Core. Input is encouraged by parents and

other stakeholders throughout the process of determining and

adopting standards.

 

MYTH: Most parents remain unaware of the specific details of the Common

Core State Standards.

FACT: All of Alabama’s standards, adopted two years ago, can be

accessed and read by anyone on the Alabama State

Department of Education Website:

www.alsde.edu/html/CoursesOfStudy.asp. Public hearings were

held throughout the state before adoption by the State Board of

Education.

 

MYTH: Education decisions in states with the Common Core will ultimately

be mandated by unaccountable bureaucrats and special interests in

Washington, D.C.

FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s

resolution adopting the standards on November 18, 2010, the

SBOE remains the “sole and exclusive entity vested with

authority" over Alabama’s public schools.

 

MYTH: The Common Core invades students’ privacy by requiring the

collection of personal information, which will be shared with the

federal government and private organizations without parents’

permission, and it requires that students be tracked from preschool

through their careers with data that will become part of a national

database.

FACT: The Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards, as well as

the Common Core State Standards, are only academic

standards for each grade in math and English. Neither set of

standards mandates any type of data collection. The state of

Alabama has no reporting requirements associated with its

involvement with the Common Core State Standards Initiative

as it is not a Race to the Top state, not a participant in the Race

to the Top funded assessment consortia, nor a recipient of the

federally funded longitudinal data system grant.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is funding the development of

national curriculum guidelines, modes, and materials, which creates

a national curriculum.

FACT: Many organizations are creating various instructional materials

for teachers to access, just like they always have. Local

systems retain control of their curricula.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is funding the creation of national

assessments based on the Common Core standards, which creates

a national testing system.

FACT: States can voluntarily select their own assessments. Alabama

is not involved in the consortia helping to guide assessment

creation. Alabama has chosen to work with ACT, an existing

college- and career-readiness test provider.

 

MYTH: The U.S. Department of Education is violating federal laws that prohibit

any federal direction, control, or supervision of curricula, programs of

instruction, and instructional materials in the elementary and secondary

schools, and this is an invasion of states’ rights.

FACT: None of this is based in fact. Each school system in Alabama

retains complete authority to develop its own curriculum, without

fear of reprisal from the government. Lesson plans and daily

curriculum are created by local teachers and administrators.

 

MYTH: The Common Core de-emphasizes classical literature and American

history and will replace literary works about Western Civilization with

informational texts such as executive orders and work manuals, which

will further diminish students’ knowledge of the moral, historical, and

cultural foundations of our country.

FACT: Students will spend more time reading informational texts, but in

science and history classes. The new standards actually

encourage teachers to use historical documents like the

Constitution and Federalist Papers. The majority of texts students

will study in English class will still include novels, short stories,

poems, and plays.

 

MYTH: The Common Core violates the founding principle that parents and

states, not federal government, control local education.

FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s November 18,

2010, resolution adopting the standards, the SBOE remains the

“sole and exclusive entity vested with authority” regarding

Alabama’s public schools. Public hearings were held throughout

the state before adoption by the State Board of Education.

 

MYTH: Implementation of the Common Core will cost Alabama taxpayers

many millions of dollars to revamp state education systems.

FACT: Alabama adopts new standards every six years. Funding for the

adoption and selection of related materials is included in

Education Trust Fund budget.

 

 

MYTH: Alabama taxpayers had no voice or vote in adoption of the new state

standards. The Legislature needs to protect its citizens against an

overzealous federal government and keep education decisions local by

protecting state education sovereignty.

FACT: State Board of Education members are popularly elected

representatives of the citizens of Alabama. The SBOE held

public hearings regarding the standards’ adoption in 2010.

The resolution adopting the standards maintains the SBOE is

the “sole and exclusive entity vested with authority” regarding

Alabama’s public schools.

 

MYTH: The Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards and the Common

Core violate the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

(FERPA) by requiring the collection and sharing of non-academic

information on students.

FACT: Alabama’s College- and Career-Ready Standards are academic

standards that say nothing about collection of student or teacher

data or information. Regardless, all student and teacher data is

already protected by FERPA.

Should we repeal the Common Core? Fact-checking the arguments

As you may have seen in the news, state legislators and lobbyists are in the process of attempting to repeal the Common Core State Standards.  The problem with this movement is that the reasoning of the opponents to the common core has little or no basis in fact.  Case in point, the following was a quote by Ken Freeman with the Alliance for Citizen’s rights as quoted from the Alabama Political Reporter on Feb. 12th:

Freeman said that 13 years of public education and common core standards would transform children into liberals. Freeman told parents that their children, “Won’t want to know you. They won’t know any mother but mother earth. They will know no father but the fatherland, and they will know no God but government.”

These are scary words and enough to make any red-blooded American stand up and take notice.  But are they true?  Which standards is he talking about, exactly?

In an effort to address much of the misinformation out there concerning the Common Core, this post will attempt to lay out some of the rumors and claims about the Common Core and look at the facts of the matter.

Claim 1- Common Core was developed by the Federal Government and President Barak Obama in an effort to take over state control of education.

Facts- The standards themselves were created through a collaboration of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association with representatives from 48 states, 2 territories, and the District of Columbia.  It was NOT created by the federal government and handed down from on high as a mandate to the states. In fact, it was created by states for states with state input. 

Claim 2- The Federal government and President Obama created the Common Core Standards.

                                                   

Facts- Again, the federal government and President Obama had nothing to do with the standards.  The only connection the Common Core has to the federal government is that adopting the standards was one of the conditions laid out by the federal government for applying for the federal Race to the Top grants.  The federal government looked at the standards that the states had created, saw that they had merit and rigor, and gave their symbolic approval for the new standards by including them as part of a way to win federal funding for schools. 

Claim 3- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded the Common Core for the purpose of making money by marketing a new curriculum.

Facts- The Common Core was partially funded by a variety of private groups including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Hunt Institute, and other educational reform organizations.  These organizations have given great sums of money to reform and improve a broken educational system rather than to make money from it.  The textbook publishers and standardized test makers are making money by peddling their wares for the new standards, but this is no different from what they did with the old standards.  In fact, because there are so many states sharing resources on websites, webinars, training sessions, and conferences, educators have more access to free tools and resources than they ever have in the past with traditional varied curricula. 

Claim 4- The Common Core standards were created with the intent to brain-wash the minds of a young generation.

Facts- The Common Core standards were initially created through state collaboration by looking at three different areas.  One of those areas was our higher-learning institutions.  Those tasked with developing the new standards met with multiple college and universities and asked what incoming freshmen needed to know in order to avoid taking remedial classes in college.  They then met with business and industry organizations and asked them what skills business and industry were looking for from young people entering the work place.  The Common Core Standards teams also looked at the curriculum used by other nations who consistently beat the U.S. in educational benchmarks and achievements.  Using a reverse-engineering model, the standards were developed from college and workplace down rather than from Kindergarten up.  This ensured a consistent linear progression of skills learned and plugged the holes and gaps that were inherent in the old curriculum following the bottom-up approach.  Also, the Common Core Standards are taught at all levels with the end result of keeping college or career-ready in sight. 

Claim 5- States have no say in the standards of the Common Core

Facts- Representatives from 48 states contributed to the Common Core development.  This means that Alabama had a voice in the initial development of the Common Core.  Moreover, states may add standards they see as important to the students in their charge.  While there are limits to how much can be added (up to 15%, which won’t be covered on national tests) States do have some discretion on what they wish to add to the overall standards.  Alabama has included 2.5% additional materials for English Language Arts and 14% for Math.  While critics point to these numbers as proof that Alabama doesn’t have much say on what is taught, I would argue that this is a testament to how solid these standards are in the first place.  Keep in mind that the Common Core Standards at present only cover Math and English/Language Arts.  The English/Language Arts standards include literacy standards that apply to Science and Social Studies, but how is a focus on teaching students to read and communicate in all subject areas a bad thing?  Alabama History is still part of the 4^th grade curriculum and isn’t going anywhere; nor are the Arts or other subjects we in Alabama hold dear.

Claim 6- Alabama was just fine without the common core.  We don’t need them.

Facts- Alabama has made some progress in education over the last few years, but we still have a long way to go.  Alabama's education system ranks 34th in the nation in student performance and progress according to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).  This council ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia on their K-12 performance using data from national test scores, state education policy, charter school regulation, and other benchmarks to determine where each state stands.  Alabama’s ranking based on high school graduation rates still hovers around 45 out of the 50 states.  Add to these mediocre statistics the fact that our students aren’t simply competing with kids in Nebraska or Vermont but rather with students in India and China, and one can’t help but see the importance of increasing the rigor and relevance of our educational system.   

Claim 7- Common Core creates a federal government database that will follow your children from kindergarten to retirement

Facts- The Common Core Standards don’t have any standards requiring the tracking of students from birth to grave.  We already have two federal entities that do that.  They are called the Social Security Administration and the IRS.  I am not sure how educational standards developed collaboratively by the states were somehow accused of fulfilling this role, unless critics are talking about the gathering of standardized testing data, which could be tracked before Common Core ever entered the picture. 

Claim 8- Common Core dumbs down education.

Facts- This is the easiest claim to refute and is one that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Simply put the Common Core standards next to our traditional course of study and see for yourself.  Because Common Core standards were designed in part to compete with the rigorous standards of other countries, the intensity and focus on mastery of concepts has greatly increased.  Our traditional standards could be described as “a mile wide and an inch deep”.  While the new standards don’t cover as many practices and concepts in some grade levels, they are much more in-depth and focus on theory as well as practice (see the blog post entitled “Why can’t 2+2 just equal four?”).  The reverse-engineering of the standards from college and business backwards has also ensured a more strenuous set of standards than what we have had in the past.

Claim 9- states will lose rights and parents and students will be trapped in that curriculum since there will not be competition

Facts- States can choose to opt in or choose to opt out of the Common Core.  It is a state decision.  In fact, choosing to opt out of the Common Core is what the critics are clamouring for right now.  Critics often point to the ideal that education should be based on local, and to a lesser extent, state control.  While I personally agree with that concept in principal, I have been in education long enough to see that funding drives education.  Those that wish to break off all ties with the federal government and to lessen the shackles of state control must be willing to find alternative local funding to cover the deficit left in moving away from those entities.  In the meantime, local school boards and central office personnel will still perform their duties with the same level of autonomy as they have done over the past few years despite the shift to Common Core standards.  Personnel will be hired, textbooks will be adopted, and capital improvement plans will be made.  An increase in academic intensity and student achievement will not negatively affect these operations.

Claim 10- The Common Core will cost millions of dollars we don’t have

Facts- This was partially addressed in the last claim.  Changing to the Common Core will cost money.  It has cost money.  But it is money well-spent on ensuring our students are college and career-ready and able to compete in a global economy.  Between sequester, proration, and the recession, schools have been hit hard financially.  However difficulties in funding shouldn’t be an excuse to prevent our children from being challenged to achieve all that is within their potential.

The Common Core isn’t perfect, but it has solid standards backed by valid research and incorporates many best practices into instruction.  Debate and discussion are healthy in protecting the interests of our children.  However, it is important to put emotionalism aside and look at the facts of the issues if a beneficial discussion on the education of our students is to take place.   

Why can't 2 + 2 just equal 4?

A teacher at our school recently received a note with the question posed above.  The parents were frustrated with the new Common Core standards and longed for the good ol’ days when drill-and-kill with worksheets and flash cards was all that was required for mathematical proficiency.  While drilling mathematical facts still has its place, the Common Core standards incorporate math theory along with math practice to create math fluency.  Students are no longer expected simply to know what the answer is, but rather how numbers work together to get to that answer. 

My daughter is in first grade and was struggling one night with the instructions given on how to add numbers.  I noticed her frustration and asked, “Hannah, what do you see when you look at that number?” 

Hannah responded, “It’s a 20.” 

“Hannah,” I said, “you see a 20, but I see four fives, two tens, ten twos, an eighteen plus two more, and so on.  They are trying to show you how the numbers can be taken apart and put together in different ways to get to the answer.” 

Hannah’s eyes brightened as the purpose of the exercise registered in her little mind, and she said, “Daddy, that is awesome!” 

It is awesome.  And it is different from how I learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.  A teacher at our school began one of her math lessons by pulling up a map of our community and having the children find all of the possible ways to get to Walmart. Some of the routes were direct, some were indirect, but they all eventually got to the same destination. She then explained that they were going to look for different routes to get to a mathematical answer.  Some would be more direct than others, but she wanted her students to understand how numbers work; not just merely how to find the sum or the difference in a problem.

Research has shown the benefit of understanding number theory along with mathematical practice as well.  A study was done a few years ago by the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) comparing the performance of students from Hong Kong to students in the U.S. on an international math assessment.   The students from the U.S. had covered roughly two-thirds more mathematical practices than their Hong Kong counterparts, but the students from Hong Kong scored significantly higher on the assessment.  Upon further study, it became clear that while the U.S. students had covered much more material, the students from Hong Kong had gone much deeper in the practices they had covered.  They had a deeper knowledge of mathematical theory and the way that numbers work.  They were able to use this understanding to successfully solve a variety of problems to which they may not have previously been exposed.

So, 2+2 does still equal four.  But it does more than that as well.  When our students understand the concepts of number theory, they will be better equipped to tackle any mathematical problem that comes their way.

Am I really implementing Common Core Standards?

-By Matthew Massey 

How are the new Common Core Standards going to change my mathematics classroom?  This is a question that I struggled with for months.  It took a while for me to even figure out what the heck these new standards meant!  While I was focused on the “Content Standards” I finally realized the key is the “Practice Standards.”   These eight standards are the same for grades K-12.  Their center is a student-focused classroom, built on students uncovering mathematical concepts.  The teacher is not the focus. The teacher is there to guide students as they travel down the conceptual paths.  I finally figured out the CCS is not just about what to teach, but how to teach.

I designed a rubric (will be linked under CC resources soon) for teachers to self-evaluate implementation of the Common Core ideals specified in the Practice Standards.  I have evaluated myself and been evaluated by peers, and each time I learned ways in which I can do better. 

I do not think it is possible to implement the Common Core Standards and ideals without rigorous self-evaluation.  Hopefully, this can help other teachers implement the Mathematics Practice Standards which is the very fabric of the Common Core Standards.
 

Video Describing Shifts of the Common Core

This video was taken from a Common Core conference given in New York State.  The first 11 minutes of the video contain the best synopsis I have heard of shifts from traditional standards to those found in the Common Core.  The speaker covers both the shifts in E/LA and Math. 

http://engageny.org/resource/quick-explanation-of-the-shifts-by-kate-gerson

Video on Academic Rigor

Here is a video on the meaning of "rigor" when used in academics.  It is about 3 1/2 minutes long.  It is informative because it describes how rigor should apply to teaching both strugglers as well as high achieving students.  I can't figure out how to imbed this type of video, so I will just provide the link. 

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/rigor-and-student-motivation.shtml