Common Core Standards/Next Gen Science Standards/STEM
- National Core Standards for
Kindergartners– (1/10/12) – Newstimes.com - National core
standards for kindergartnersNew national "common core" standards
adopted by 45 states, including Connecticut, and the District of Columbia for
2014 expect kindergarten children to master skills rather than just be
introduced to them.
- How Much will RTT3 Benefit STEM Education– (1/10/12) – Education Week - All seven states that
qualified for the third round of the federal Race to the Top competition have won a share in the $200 million
remaining, and all of them will be expected to address STEM fields. The
question on the table is just how far these changes are going to go where STEM
is concerned. Remember, states primarily will use this money to implement part
of their original Race to the Top plans—which means making progress in one of
the core areas of the economic-stimulus legislation, such as raising standards,
improving evaluation systems, or turning around low-performing schools. They
don't actually have to spend it explicitly on STEM programming.
- Kansas
to lead effort to improve science education – (12/22/11) – El Dorado Times - Kansas
has been selected as one of a group of states that will lead an important
effort to improve science education for all students.In all, 20 states will
lead the development of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that will
clearly define and integrate the content and practices students will need to
learn from kindergarten through high school graduation. The NGSS process is
being coordinated by the National Research Council, which is the staffing arm
of the National Academy of Sciences, and the standards development process is
being managed by Achieve, an education reform non-profit organization.
- Preparing
Teachers for the Next Generation Science Standards- (12/13/11)- Chemical
and Engineering News- Calls to improve K–12 science education are becoming
increasingly vocal as the need for a highly trained scientific workforce and a
scientifically literate citizenry has become imperative in the U.S. To address
this need, the National Research Council (NRC) created the Committee on
Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards, which released its
final report in July 2011 (C&EN,
July 25, page 11).
Copies of the report, entitled “A Framework for K–12
Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas,” can be obtained on
the National Academies
Press
website. The American Chemical Society, through its Committee on Education and
individual members, provided input as the NRC framework was being developed.
- 34
STEM Education Programs Awarded- (12/9/11) US News-Thirty-four innovative STEM programs
nationwide will get some help from big corporate backers as part of the Ashoka Changemakers Partnering for Excellence competition. Organizations
and companies such as Google, Exxon, and the Carnegie Corporation pledged
hundreds of thousands of dollars to help scale up programs that focus on STEM,
such as "Citizen Schools," which puts STEM professionals into
high-needs classrooms to give students role models.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA/ NCLB)
- House
ESEA Draft Would Rein in Federal Accountability Rules– (1/9/12) – Education Week -
House Republicans released two draft bills that would significantly scale back
the federal role in K-12 schools and go further than any other proposal yet to
dismantle the accountability tenets at the heart of the decade-old No Child
Left Behind Act.The measures, put forth by U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn.,
chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee today, take some of
the same steps as a bipartisan Senate rewrite of NCLB—and the Obama
administration’s own vision for rewriting the
law. Like those proposals, the Republican bills would entirely scrap the law’s
signature yardstick, adequate yearly progress, or AYP, while largely keeping
NCLB’S current testing schedule in place. ("Obama Outlines
NCLB Flexibility," September 28, 2011.)
- NCLB
turns 10– (1/6/12)
– Education
Week - Ten years after President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind
Act into law on Jan. 8, 2002, NCLB is now overdue for reauthorization in
Congress. Bipartisan in its origins but controversial in its execution, NCLB,
which is the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
expanded the federal role in education and targeted improving the achievement
of disadvantaged students.To reflect on the law's anniversary, the Education
Week Commentary editors asked a range of K-12 education leaders,
politicians, teachers, and child advocates for their thoughts. This package
also includes links to Education Week's coverage over the decade,
readers’ comments, and a glossary of selected NCLB terms.
- Half
of US Schools Fail Federal Standards– (12/15/11) – USA Today - Nearly half of America's public
schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the
largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took
effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday. The
Center on Education Policy report shows more than 43,000 schools — or 48% — did
not make "adequate yearly progress" this year. The failure rates
range from a low of 11% in Wisconsin to a high of 89% in Florida.
- House
Republicans likely to Write Own NCLB Bill- (12/15/11) – Education Week – GOP lawmakers on the House
education committee are likely to write a Republican-only version of the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.U.S. Rep. John
Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce
Committee, said today that the committee has been working for months on a
bipartisan rewrite of the law, but lawmakers haven't been able to reach
agreement.
- Military
Children Stay a Step Ahead of Public School Children– (12/11/11) – The New York Times -
The results are now public from the 2011 federal testing program known as NAEP,
the National Assessment
of Educational Progress. And once again, schools on the nation’s military bases
have outperformed public schools on both reading and math tests for fourth and
eighth graders. They would find that the schools on base are not subject to
former President George W. Bush’s signature education program, No Child Left Behind, or to President
Obama’s Race to the Top. They would find that standardized tests do not
dominate and are not used to rate teachers, principals or schools.
Educate to Innovate, Race to the Top and i3
- Big
Race to Top Problems in Hawaii, Florida, N.Y., Says Ed. Dept– (1/10/12) – Education
Week - In its first official assessment of $4 billion in Race to the Top
grants, the U.S. Department of Education today commended the 12 winners for
working hard to implement the first year of their reform plans—but raised
specific red flags about the pace of change in Hawaii, New York, and Florida.
- Challenges
Lie Ahead for Early-Learning Grant Winners (1/13/12)- Education
Week- The
nine states splitting $500 million in Race to the Top early-learning grants
must now deliver on a slate of ambitious promises to improve the quality of
early-childhood education for tens of thousands of low-income children who rely
on a patchwork of publicly financed child-care and preschool programs.
- Landrieu
Education and Health Funding Priorities Clear Senate
(12/18/11)- politicalnews.me- The U.S. Senate
approved year-end federal funding legislation, which contains education and
health priorities advocated by United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La.
This includes funding for charter schools, support for programs like Teach For
America and increased funding for Louisiana from the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program (LIHEAP). This legislation has passed the House and now goes
to the President to be signed into law.
The legislation includes $256 million for the Charter Schools Program
and $55 million to continue the high-quality Charter Management Organization
(CMO) competition and $11 million to strengthen charter school authorizing and
oversight.
- Can
Washington fix what ails American higher ed?-
(12/7/11)- CBSnews.com- The administration does have one model of
which it's proud. That's the $4.3 billion "Race to the Top" fund for
K-12 education reform, which used a relatively small slice of stimulus dollars
as a prize to nudge dozens of states competing for it into reforms like
expanding charter schools and developing common standards. The structure also
helped at least dilute, though not avoid, criticism that Washington was
stepping on the states' toes.
Other State
- Race to the Bottom–UFT's Selfish move on schools- (1/3/12) – New York
Post- Last
week, after months of negotiations, the teachers union refused to agree to a
meaningful system for evaluating teachers in 33 struggling city schools. As a
result, the state suspended some $60 million in federal grants meant for those
schools. It was a truly unfortunate outcome — but even more worrisome is the
fact that the union leadership threw away those desperately needed federal
dollars because they wanted new job protections for the worst-performing
teachers in those schools.
- Superintendants
Push Dramatic Change for Conn. Schools-
(1/4/12)- Education Week- The Connecticut
classroom of the future may not be limited by a traditional school year, the
four walls of a classroom, or even the standard progression of grades, based on
a proposed package
of unusually bold changes that are being advanced by the state’s school
superintendents.Instead, the current system would be replaced by a
“learner-centered” education program that would begin at age 3; offer parents a
menu of options, including charter schools and magnet schools; and provide
assessments when an individual child is ready to be tested, rather than having
all children tested in a class at the same time.
- California
Has Low Science Standards Study Says (12/13/11)- MercuryNews.com- California claims it
sets its academic bar high for public school students, but a newly released
study shows that the state's eighth-grade science standards fall far below a
national benchmark -- and are lower than those in nearly half the states. The
survey examined states' standards for eighth-grade science and students' test
results for 2009, and compared them to a national yardstick. Using as a
reference point the National Assessment of Education Progress, the only K-12
academic test common across all states, California's definition of proficiency
in science actually falls below the "basic" level. So do proficiency
standards in 15 other states. The study found that only three states -- New
Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts--maintain science standards above
NAEP's definition of proficiency.