Why Common Core tests won’t be what Arne Duncan promised
On Sept. 2, 2010, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave a speech called “Beyond The Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments.” Duncan was referring to standardized tests that were just then starting to be created to align with the Common Core State Standards. These tests, being developed by two multi-state consortia with $360 million in federal funds, promised to go beyond the familiar multiple-choice standardized tests that have been foisted on students for more than a decade with increasingly high stakes attached to the scores.
Duncan said in that speech to state leaders at Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting:
I am convinced that this new generation of state assessments will be an absolute game-changer in public education. For the first time, millions of schoolchildren, parents, and teachers will know if students are on-track for colleges and careers–and if they are ready to enter college without the need for remedial instruction. Yet that fundamental shift–re-orienting K-12 education to extend beyond high school graduation to college and career-readiness–will not be the only first here.For the first time, many teachers will have the state assessments they have longed for
How to arm our schools
How do schools best protect children? The national debate is now centered around whether armed guards should be added to more schools, but here’s a different view, from Jean Faye, a special education para educator in a first-grade classroom at Crocker Farm Elementary in Amherst, Massachusetts. She grew up in Newtown, Connecticut, the site of the killings of 20 students and six teachers in December, and her mother is a retired support professional who worked in Newtown schools.
By Jean Faye
It used to be that the only people who were familiar with my home town of Newtown, Connecticut, were its residents and Scrabble enthusiasts (because the game was invented there). But Dec. 14, 2012, changed all of that. I’ll never forget the horror as I saw images of my town on every news station; my eyes still tear up when I hear Newtown mentioned. Like many, I continue to mourn not only the loss of lives, but the loss of the potential that the 20 first graders were just starting to share with the world as well as the loss of six