9486 in the collection
Tougher new national math, English standards drafted
Ohanian Comment: So I got a chance to comment again. Correction: The Alliance for Childhood isn't "my" organization, but I have proudly worked with them and proudly signed their statement on the Common Core Standards Initiative. You will see I am in very good company.
by Greg Toppo
A year-long effort to lay out the first set of national standards for USA schoolchildren got its first full-scale airing Wednesday, as groups developing the measures posted lengthy, detailed drafts of math and English standards online.
The public has until April 2 to comment — final versions are expected by May.
The move comes as education reformers and lawmakers complain that many states have watered down expectations in the face of a decade-long federal push to get greater percentages of students scoring higher on state skills tests. No Child Left Behind, the school reform law passed by Congress in 2001, requires annual math and reading tests for millions of students each year, with a requirement that 100% of students master state standards by 2014.
The new push, spearheaded by the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers, seeks to refocus the debate. NGA's Dane Linn on Wednesday said educators are demanding "fewer, clearer and higher" standards that are uniform nationwide, giving kids in urban, suburban and rural school districts equal access to high-quality material. "It does not matter what your ZIP code is."
But Linn also said that new standards are just the first step, requiring new efforts to improve textbooks, data systems and standardized tests, among other areas. "We're not kidding ourselves that defining what the inputs are will automatically lead to equal opportunities," he said.
So far, 48 states have pledged to adopt the standards — only Texas and Alaska have bowed out. Last November, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said the effort "can be seen as a step toward a federal takeover of the nation's public schools."
Kentucky became the first state to formally adopt the standards. Its state school board last month unanimously voted to replace its state standards in math and English with the new standards.
President Obama has made adoption of the standards a key metric in whether states qualify for a share of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top federal grant initiative.
Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana, Obama's assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, on Wednesday said the new standards "will make teachers' lives easier and teaching more effective."
The draft language arts standards are "pretty darned impressive," said Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that has supported the effort. Finn said the standards' authors have "imaginatively incorporated the reading sides of science and history as well as English per se. They've supplied plenty of compelling examples of what kids at various levels should be reading. And they haven't overpromised."
While he confessed to not having read the math standards, Finn added that "millions of American kids would be far better off in schools adhering to these standards than they are today."
Vermont educator and blogger Susan Ohanian, who has decried the effort's high-profile foundation and corporate support, on Wednesday said, "I'm pleased to see they dumped Plato as an 'exemplary text' for sixth-graders and Wordsworth's Prelude for ninth-graders, but no matter how many of our favorite books we see on their list, it is ludicrous for corporate politicos to ship reading lists to children they do not know."
Ohanian's group, the Alliance for Childhood, has urged NGA and others to suspend drafting standards for young children in kindergarten through third grade.
— Greg Toppo
USA
2010-03-10
http://content.usatoday.com/community/comments.aspx?id=37801470.story&p=4
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