House Committee on Education and the Workforce Dem / Flickr
National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel.
The head of the nation’s largest teacher’s union says school districts are botching the implementation of shared math and language arts standards known as Common Core.
“Seven of ten teachers believe that implementation of the standards is going poorly in their schools. Worse yet, teachers report that there has been little to no attempt to allow educators to share what’s needed to get CCSS implementation right. In fact, two-thirds of all teachers report that they have not even been asked how to implement these new standards in their classrooms,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel writes in the Feb. 19 letter. “Consequently, NEA members have a right to feel frustrated, upset, and angry about the poor commitment to implementing the standards correctly.”
In all, the letter is more evidence of a phenomenon my colleague Andrew Ujifusa of State EdWatch fame and I wrote about in this week’s edition of Education Week: Unions are in a tricky situation on the common core. They’ve been among its greatest champions, and are now faced with rank-and-file members’ gripes as it’s implemented, especially in New York.
The NEA won’t oppose the standards, Van Roekel writes in the letter. “[S]cuttling these standards will simply return us to the failed days of No Child Left Behind, where rote memorization and bubble tests drove teaching and learning,” he says.
Florida is one of 45 states which have fully adopted the standards. Common Core outlines what students should know at the end of each grade. The standards are expected to be more difficult in order to better prepare students for college or a job.
Parents and students protest outside then-Gov. Jeb Bush's Miami office in this 2003 photo.
At yesterday’s State Board of Education meeting, Orlando mom Andrea Rediske scolded members for state and federal rules requiring standardized testing.
Tuesday, she sought support for the Ethan Rediske Act, or HB 895, which would exempt students from state standardized tests if parents, special educators and school superintendents could prove a medical need to skip the test.
“This incident caused anguish to my family,” Rediske told the board, “and shows a stunning lack of compassion and even common sense on the part of the Department of Education.
“You may ask yourselves: ‘If this is such a problem why isn’t there more public outcry from the parents of disabled children?’ I am here to tell you why. Parents of severely disabled children are exhausted. We spend our lives keeping these children alive.”
Most school districts no longer require students to learn how to write in cursive. Since the 1970s, fewer and fewer people see the importance of curlicues.
Every October, high-school students across the country take the PSAT, or Practice SAT, a standardized test developed by College Board that provides high school students a chance to enter scholarship programs and gain access to college and career planning tools.
But, it wasn’t the algebraic equations that terrified the kids. It was the cursive.
Seriously.
As the kids filled in their identifying information, they came to a section that asked them to copy a pledge promising not to cheat – in cursive – and then to sign their names.
“Miss, what do they mean by ‘sign your name’?” one student asked.
“You know, the way that you write your name on important documents, like contracts or checks.”
Questioning stare. “Like, in cursive?”
“Yes.”
I have never seen so many stunned teenagers, paralyzed, gripping their pencils, gulping. It took one child a full five minutes to copy the roughly 25 words and sign his name. Continue Reading →
Protestors object to Common Core math and language arts standards outside a State Board of Education meeting in Orlando.
The State Board of Education approved changes to the state’s K-12 standards that keeps calculus and cursive writing, and clarifies and adjusts when some standards are taught.
The board approved the changes despite dozens of parents and activists asking the board to rescind the standards. The vote marks another –possibly final — transformation for Florida’s K-12 math, English and language arts standards known as Common Core. Florida is one of 45 states which have fully adopted Common Core.
The standards outline what students should know at the end of each grade.
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said debate over the content of the standards is over.
“I think that the vote that the board took today certainly does lay to rest where we’re headed,” she said, “the direction we’re going with our standards. This is the right move.”
Senate President Don Gaetz wants to requires students receiving tax credit scholarships to take state standardized tests.
The debate over whether to require students using one of the state’s private school scholarship programs take state standardized tests is flaring up again.
Florida lawmakers want to expand the state’s private school scholarship program for low-income students funded with tax credits. But Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, thinks the scholarships should also come with the requirement that those schools administer the same statewide test as Florida’s public schools, as the Orlando Sentinel reported last week.
The issue is important as Florida chooses a new statewide test tied to Common Core language arts and math standards to replace the FCAT. Education Commissioner Pam Stewart is expected to recommend a new test next month.
Senate President Don Gaetz sat down with StateImpact Florida to talk about some of the biggest education issues for lawmakers this spring, including what kind of test will replace the FCAT.
Q: Florida is in the process of implementing Common Core standards. The state still hasn’t determined how students will be assessed on what they’ve learned. Plus, you still have critics who say this a national take over of education. You’ve said you would not support legislation to repeal common core. But are there any plans to change it this year?
A: When you look at materials used to teach students, that’s where some of the criticism has come in. So there’s legislation that would make clear that the selection of instructional materials is up to the local school board.
Then there’s the issue of assessment. Speaker Weatherford and I last year wrote to the Department of Education and said get Florida out of Common Core PARCC.
The median income of a high school graduate in 2013 was about two-thirds that of a college graduates the same year. In 1979, the median income of a high school graduate was about three-quarters that of a college grad.
The good news is that students are earning college degrees at a higher rate than at other points in the past 50 years. One-third of students in the Millennial Generation (born after 1980) have earned a college degree. That’s up form about one-quarter of the three previous generational cohorts, Gen Xers, Late Boomers and Early Boomers.
The bad news? Inflation-adjusted median annual income has remained flat across the four generations. That’s because as college graduates have earned more, those without a college degree have earned less.
There’s an enormous push in Florida right now to grab more of the innovation economy, but we’re not the only state making a play for this sector. The competition nationally is fierce. Cities like St. Louis, Charlotte, and Phoenix have made bigger strides when it comes to growing as tech hubs.
courtesy Girls Who Code
There are fewer women in computer science.
So local business leaders and policy makers are tackling issues to bring and keep startups here. One is growing the local talent pool for the future. Theories about Silicon Valley’s success always include the presence of Stanford University and its ecosystem. An educated workforce matters.
Now, a national nonprofit called Girls Who Code is working to grow the next generation of STEM–science, technology, engineering and math–stars in South Florida. The organization is rolling out its computer science immersion program for the first time in Miami this summer. Seven weeks, seven-hour days in the classroom (that doesn’t include homework). Continue Reading →
Education Commissioner Pam Stewart has recommended changes to the school grading formula.
Florida’s school grades would focus on student performance on state tests, graduation rates and earning college credit or industry certifications, according to a proposal posted at the Florida Department of Education website.
Florida’s school grades were intended to be an easy-to-understand way for parents to know how their child’s school is performing. But educators have complained the formula has gotten too complicated as state officials added more and more components to the formula.
School grades are important because good grades determine which schools and teachers are paid bonuses, while low-performing schools must come up with a plan to improve their grade or even be closed. High-performing schools can even raise nearby property values.
With Florida moving to new K-12 math and language arts standards and a new statewide test next year, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart wants to simplify things a little.
The proposal trims the number of components that make up the school grade score.
Sen. Marco Rubio wants to change higher education.
When Sen. Marco Rubio was growing up, his parents gave him an edict:
“From a very early age they used to tell us, ‘tu tienes que estudiar,’ which means, ‘you have to study.’ So growing up I don’t ever recall not considering going to college,” Rubio told an audience at Miami-Dade College on Monday.
Rubio talked at length about his education with a crowd of students, advocates and press at a summit presented by The National Journal on Monday. He used his speech to outline what he calls the “growing opportunity gap” and explain what he would do to change higher education.
Rubio described how, once he graduated from the University of Miami’s law school, he was surprised he couldn’t afford the repayments on his $100,000 student loan.
“One of the central problems of our outdated higher education system is that it has become increasingly unaffordable for those who stand to benefit the most,” he said.
And even if students can afford it, Rubio thinks traditional college isn’t a good investment for everyone. Continue Reading →
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