Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Kills Anti-Common Core Bill
The Alabama Anti-Common Core bill dies, more accurately was killed by a State Senator who is confused.First, the legislative news. The Alabama Senate President Pro Tem, Del Marsh, a Republican, announced that he would not entertain any bills pertaining to the common core for a full Senate vote. That means Senate Bill 403, which passed the Senate Education Committee and would have required the state to drop the standards, has gone belly-up. Marsh’s announcement comes the day after a rally, reportedly consisting of about 300 people, at the capital, during which educators and others urged state lawmakers not to drop the standards.For someone who killed a fellow Republican’s bill, Marsh had an interesting comment when discussing why he won’t give the bill any oxygen: “I truly have talked to educated people on both
CCSSO Releases C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
Earlier this month the Council of Chief State School Officers released the draft of the “College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. I just got my hands on a copy yesterday and skimmed through it.
It focuses on civics, economics, geography and history. States involved in the project are: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
It is unclear what state involvement in the creation of Social Studies standards means for future implementation. I’m not certain whether these states signed an Memorandum of Understanding similar to what they did with the Common Core State Standards. You can see that some of the same players are involved as associate members, such as, Pearson. It is heavily tied into the Common Core ELA standards which was expected.
Having skimmed through this my primary concern is the encouragement of civic and political activism. While on its face that isn’t a bad thing, but I have to wonder what is encouraged. I saw where potential indoctrination
Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice (Part I)
This is Part One of a three part article which provides the description of each of the Standards for Mathematical Practice as written in the Common Core math standards. It discusses aspects of each SMP that can be interpreted along conventional or traditional approaches to math teaching and contrasts this with how each one may be implemented under the math reform interpretation.
The Common Core Standards for math are a set of guidelines written for both math and English language arts under the auspices of National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Where they are adopted, the Common Core standards will replace state standards in these subject areas, establishing more common ground for schools nationwide.
The Standards of Mathematical Practice (SMP) are a part of the Common Core math standards. On the surface,