Sunday, September 12, 2010

Livin' the Dream!!

As the resisdent expert on Common Core State Standards I have been given unlimited funds and unlimited authority!  Awesome!  My principal has asked me to implement change in each area of our school that would need to be changed in order to make CCSS work to it's fullest potential.  This is exactly what I would do.

At the end of the school year teachers would be given two weeks off.  At that point everyone would return to school for "summer planning".  Teachers would be paid DOUBLE OVERTIME!  Money is no object.  All summer long we would spend time studying the new standards, planning instruction, sharing ideas about how to teach each subject in a student centered classroom, what type of assessments (formal and informal) would be appropriate for CCSS, what type of evaluations we are going to used for the end of each trimester, and what type of progress report and report card would be the SIMPLEST way to document our students progress.
Teachers would be given three weeks to plan, analyze, and communicate with their peers to develop the best plan of action for the year that would ensure each of the standards was covered in a logical timeline. 
While General Ed and Special Ed teachers are busy planning, the Specialist will be planning thier curriculum as well.  Thier assignment would be to use music, art, drama, and PE objectives to enrich math, reading, science, and social studies standards.
With all our extra money we would higher three on-site ESC specialists.  One ESC would care for the computers school, the other two would be divided into primary and intermediate grades.  Thier job would be to train teachers and students on various programs that would align with the CCSS objectives.  Each class would have two to three hours of computer lab time in addition to having access to laptops in the classroom.  The ECS would be in the computer lab at all times and esentially be a specialist like the art or music teacher. 
With the computer savvy kids we would have there would be no need for paper because each child would have thier own laptop.  When we purchase our new textbooks for the year each child would get a text book, but all worksheets would be downloaded on the laptop and students would turn them in electronically.
Standardized tests would be eliminated with the exception of one pre-test and post-test twice a year.  Beginning of the year pretes with mid year post test, then a mid year pre test with a end of the year post test.  Each test would be analyzed by teachers over the course of three days.  We could adjust instruction accordingly and share ideas with each other about the best direction to take in order to fullfull the CCSS.
On Staff development day the teachers themsleves would do NONE of the presenting.  OUtside Education Research Specialist would be brought in to get us up to date on the latest human learning reasearch, and curriculum specialist would be brought in to help us plan and think outside the box.  We would need help thinking at the point because our brains would be fried. 
One helper per grade would be hired to do the teadious things that take teachers away from instructional analysis.  That helper would put up bulletin boards, change out instructional information on the classroom walls, organize classroom materials, file paper work for the teacher, prepare mailers to communicate with parents, serve on recess duty, etc.
THere would be a paid Mentor Teacher whose sole job would be to council and work one on one with new teachers for the first two years of thier teaching experience.  They would be required to be a CCSS expert as well. 
In conclusion, the AP would handle all building, and budget realted problems, there would be a Dean of Students whose sole job would be to handle discipline, and the Principal would work directly with teachers in the classroom, planning, analyzing, testing, setting goals and helping to set up student interventions.
This is how I would set up my school if I were in charge.  One final thought.  Each teacher would be given a raise and the principal and teachers would be in charge of the budget for thier school.  The district would provide us with our annual budget and then let us spend it how we feel our students would benefit best.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Visit this Site

If you are interested in reading some plain language arguments against CCSS that are not on the CCSS website go to:
http://www.gpee.org/fileadmin/files/pdf/GPEE_Policy_Brief_Common_Standards.pdf

They had some very interesting points.

Dr. Wu's Quote

The Common Core mathematics standards succeed in being both mathematically coherent and grade level appropriate. Overall, they are the best standards that I have seen in the past twenty years. If we can design a professional development program of the same caliber to go with these standards, then our nation will be making a substantial first step towards educational excellence in mathematics.


- Dr. Hung-Hsi Wu, Professor of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley

I watched the entire power point presentation.  I can't seem to find it again.  However, his overall statements were not in protest of the CCSS, he was bringing awareness to the lack of discussion about professional development.

Common Core Standards Grades 3-5 and High School

Contrary to my prior post, I now see the differences in the Common Core Standards and the CEF Benchmarks put in place by the Clark COunty School District.  Upon further examination I see that the Common Core Standards state the objective clearly and give examples.  In addition to this there are differences in the actual standards themselves.  For example, one of the fourth grade Common Core Standards calls for students to decompose fractions.  They are to understand that 3/8=1/8+1/8+1/8.  This standard is absent in the CCSD or NV State Standards. 
In examining the standards I chose one math objective, Fractions, and followed it through grades 3-5.  In addition I also examined the High School math standards that were the "culmination" of the fraction standards for the primary grades, Statistics and Probability.  After reading the presententation by Dr. Hung-Hsi Wu, I realized he was a proponent of the CCSS, but was not of the California State Standards, or the lack of higher order thinking skills involved in any of the current state standards.  The CCSS uses specific verbage that lends itself to be taught as a collection of critical thinking skills and not rote memorization.  For example, in the each of the standards, students are to model thier answers using fractionlal models.  In addition to fractions, the authors of the third grade standards call for the the students to express thier knowledge of the properties of multipilication and division.  At no point does it say that students will memorize math facts. 
I do believe that rote memorization of the math facts, especially multiplication, is essential. However, the authors of the CCSS standards strive to have third grade students understand the concept prior to memorization.  What I believe Dr. Wu was trying to say was that we have these great standards being proposed but the teacher education was lacking.  He wasn't bashing teachers by any means but he was expressing the lack of understanding and proffesional development on the part of teachers and state educators.
There are many entities that are supporters of the CCSS for several reasons.  One of the arguments is that this is a better culmination of standards that will better prepare students for college level courses.  The way that the fractions standards are laid out in my examination of grades 3-5 and the High School Statistics and Probablities shows that this is a true statement.  There seems to be an enhanced idea of the sprialling curriculum.