EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products) is an initiative of the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network designed to identify high-quality materials aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Achieve is very excited to announce the selection of a new round of EQuIP Peer Review Panel members. Below Read more
Amidst all of the recent turmoil about Common Core, with some states changing the name of the standards, others considering pulling them, and others having already taken steps to pull back from the testing consortia, Kentucky stands out as a model state which has moved beyond any other state in Read more
Ever feel like education reform efforts are pulling educators in too many, often opposing directions? In a new special issues brief, authors Sheri Leo and Jane Coggshall lay out a suggested approach for creating meaningful coherence across three interdependent education reforms: Common Core State Standards, teacher evaluation, and professional learning. Read more
The Achievement Network (ANet) is pleased to share its paper, “Focusing on the How: Guidance for School and District Leaders on Supporting Teachers Through the Transition to the Common Core,” recently released at an event co-sponsored with The Aspen Institute Education & Society Program in Washington, D.C. The insights of Read more
The state of Arizona has taken a novel approach amidst the Common Core wars. The state will not abandon the new standards; they will simply not call them by the same name. Instead of Common Core, they will now be known as “Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards.’’ The idea Read more
Are students being forgotten in the midst of the political battle that is ramping up over Common Core? It sure seems so. Conservative groups across the country, as well as a few liberal ones, have escalated their campaign to awaken Americans to the supposed dangers of the Common Core. An Read more
A few weeks ago, the state of Florida, while stopping short of withdrawing from participation in Common Core, revoked its participation in PARCC, the joint state-run assessment service employed by many states to assess how students are meeting the demands of the new Common Core curriculum.The Council for Chief State Read more
As the internationally benchmarked Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are adopted in states across the country, educators are seeking ways to support an increasingly diverse student population to meet these more demanding expectations. The likelihood that students will achieve the aims of the standards will be substantially shaped by how Read more
The National School Boards Association‘s Center for Public Education is out with a recent report that says teaching the Common Core will require a professional development overhaul. Most teachers only receive workshop-based training for professional development, even though research shows it can be ineffective, the report says. And while teachers Read more
The Common Core makes for strange allies. On the “for” side, there is the Obama Administration, teachers’ unions, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. On the “against” side is the Tea Party, some prominent Republican members of Congress, as well as the Democratic Progressive Read more
In the continuing era of No Child Left Behind, which calls for verifiable data to be used to make decisions about schools and education policy, standardized tests have become increasingly common for most American schools. With more recent questions about how much these test scores should be used to evaluate Read more
As states and districts transition to the more rigorous Common Core State Standards, the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) has released a new paper, “Preparing Teachers for the Common Core: Aligning Standards for Teaching with Standards for Learning”, outlining how the TAP Teaching Standards clearly align to the Read more
Catherine Gewertz of Education Week has delved into the complicated issue of how testing for Common Core will be administered, and the results suggest that the prices of those tests, while probably fair for what they offer, may prove prohibitive for some states. What we already know is this: “Now Read more
As teachers and students are heading back to school, Jenny DeMonte at the Center for American Progress has penned a timely piece about teacher professional development. DeMonte argues that there is a general consensus that most current systems of educator professional development (PD) are not effective, and calls for reforms Read more
The Center on Education Policy (CEP) at George Washington University has prepared three new reports based on state survey data about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The reports focus on state implementation efforts and professional development issues related to CCSS. “Year 3 of Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Read more
One of the many opportunities provided by the transition to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is the chance to develop high quality instructional materials for teachers and schools that are aligned to the rigor and college- and career-ready expectations found in the standards. At the same time, determining how Read more