CCSS

A Little Something Something About Timing

Eduflack assessment, CCSS, Media, PR, RTT

Today’s lesson is about timing.  More specifically, it is about how one times the release of announcements so that the media and key stakeholders take notice and hear the actual message that folks want to deliver.

Many of us have heard the tales that if you don’t want someone to know something, announce it over a weekend.  Or announce it over a holiday.  While the 24/7 news environment brought to us by the Interwebz, Twitter, and all those citizen bloggers has changed things somewhat, the rule is still pretty much the same.  
When making a media announcement, one should be mindful that the media, at least those covering education, primarily work the traditional work week.  You can expect them “on duty” from 9 or so in the morning until 6 or 7 in the evenings, Monday through Friday.  Afternoons are usually spent writing on deadline.  Most reporters are, of course, always on call.  But if you want to reach them, starting during those core times is a good first step.
So it is a major headscratcher to see last week’s announcement from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC.  PARCC is one of the two Common Core State Standards consortia, developing a comprehensive summative assessment to measure the K-12 standards adopted through CCSS.  The PARCC tests are seen by some as better aligned with the expectations of the US Department of Education and Race to the Top.
At any rate, late last week PARCC released a statement on the Race to the Top Technical Review and how it charted the RttT Assessment grant progress.  The finding was fairly simply, RttT found that PARCC was “generally on track,” the highest rating possible, according to PARCC.
The concern, though, was the timing of the release.  PARCC sent the announcement out on July 12, 2013, a Friday.  Email announcements were hitting reporter inboxes at 10 p.m. EDT.  So it begs the question, why dump an important and positive announcement late on a Friday night as Cinderella’s coach was turning back into a pumpkin?
Sure, one can chalk it up to bad timing.  To the release getting delayed for some reason unrelated to the announcement.  To delays in the world wide web.  All sorts of technical or manmade issues could be noted.  A cynic could even say that this was dumped late on a Friday night so that few would actually pay attention to it, not wanting to raise attention for the process of the consortia and testing in general at a time when “testing” and “assessment” are dirty words.
Regardless, we need to be a little smarter with our announcements.  PARCC’s announcement (along with the original RttT Assessment announcement) are important developments in our push toward adopting the Common Core and bringing meaningful summative assessments on line.  It deserves more than just the “document dump” treatment.  After all, any reporter wanting to cover this would now likely have to wait until Monday before someone is back in the office at Achieve or PARCC to follow up on the statement.
Nitpicking?  Maybe.  But with so many organizations and announcements jockeying to break through the white noise and have their issues heard by the media, one has to be media-friendly about the announcements.  Late Tuesday or Wednesday mornings are good.  Friday nights after prime time, not so good.  
Or maybe we just don’t want folks to know that PARCC is “generally on track.”

Common Core Math, Common Sense Approach

Eduflack 21CS, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, assessment, CCSS, Math, teachers

Earlier this week, EdSec Arne Duncan issued one of his strongest defenses of Common Core State Standards to date, taking CCSS haters to task for spreading misinformation and and offering “imaginary” criticisms of the non-federal standards issued in by the Federal government through Race to the Top and other new programs.

His defense is laudable.  Duncan is a firm believer in common academic standards for all students.  A fifth grader in Connecticut should be learning at the same pace as a fifth grader in Chicago or in Tuscaloosa or in Denver.  And like it or not, a state or a locality can still protect their academic autonomy even with CCSS as the guide.
But with so many folks focused on CCSS’ black helicopters and its role in leading an international takeover of our public schools where every child will be speaking French and using the metric system, and with critics on the other side of the ideological spectrum fearing CCSS assessments and believing that testing our kids in any way, shape, or form will destroy our children from the soul outward (despite decades of children who took California Achievement Tests, Iowa tests, Stanfords, SATs, ACTs, drivers tests, IQ tests, and Pepsi taste tests without too much damage), not much public discussion is being directed at HOW we actually go about teaching to the CCSS and ensuring that are kids are hitting the math and reading benchmarks we expect to see.
Last week, the State of Louisiana waded into this discussion, issuing guidance on what resources were best for teachers in teaching to the Common Core.  Interestingly, Louisiana’s Office of the State Superintendent did not recommend any specific math textbooks, finding that “none were sufficiently aligned to the Common Core State Standards.”
But it did recommend a new P-12 math curriculum created by a not-for-profit organization, praising it for its rigor and and alignment to CCSS.
The curriculum of note was developed by a national not-for-profit called Common Core (interestingly, the group was created years before the CCSS were ever adopted and is in no way affiliated with the CCSSI, though both share some words in their names).  Common Core “creates curriculum tools and promotes programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels.”
Some might recall the K-12 ELA curriculum maps Common Core released in 2010 as part of its Curriculum Mapping Project.  To date, those ELA maps have been viewed more than 6 million times, with 20,000 educators from across the country formally joining the Mapping Project to ensure a “well-developed, content-rich curriculum.”
The math curriculum boosted by Louisiana is Common Core’s latest effort.  It was developed in partnership with the New York State Department of Education and is currently available on the Common Core website and through NYSED’s website.  The Common Core math curriculum will be available in print through Jossey-Bass at the end of the summer.
Why is this so important?  For one, Common Core’s efforts (in both ELA and math) are a direct response to the question of how do we teach to the CCSS.  They are real approaches to meaningful curricula that align to the standards, go beyond the basics, and really promote student learning and intellectual development.
Equally important, this is a curricular approach developed by educators for educators.  It wasn’t done “to” teachers, it was done by teachers, created with classroom needs and instructional improvement as a central driver. 
Clearly, we are still at the beginning of the CCSS implementation journey.  But Common Core’s efforts, starting with the ELA maps and rolling into this new P-12 math curriculum, is moving us beyond the CCSS rhetoric and vitriol toward some meaningful discussion and action in how to improve teaching and learning and how to ensure all students are meeting expectations.
(Full disclosure: Eduflack has worked with Common Core for years, including helping roll out the ELA Curriculum Maps.)

“Higher-Quality Assessments”?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, CCSS, ESEA, high-stakes testing

Lost in the excitement of this week’s NCLB waiver waivers and NCTQ’s teacher prep scorecards was a new report coming out of Stanford University’s Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, or SCOPE.  The report offers up the thought-provoking title, Criteria for Higher-Quality Assessment.

With a tip of the cap to Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Criteria for Higher-Quality Assessment offers up some guidance that “can be used by assessment developers, policymakers, and educators as they work to create and adopt assessments that promote deeper learning of 21st century skills that students need to succeed in today’s knowledge-based economy.”
Obviously not as sexy as the wavier waivers (or the non-waiver of waivers, depending on who you talk to), it is an interesting topic.  And it definitely helps when this guidance is coming from a team of authors who have been or currently are involved in CCSS or the development of Common Core assessments.  The SCOPE report offers a who’s who of authors, including Linda Darling-Hammong, Joan Herman, Eva Baker, P. David Pearson, and Lauren Resnick (all told, the piece boasts 20 “authors”).
And what does the esteemed panel offer up?  Noting that “No single assessment can evaluate all of the kinds of learning we value for students or meet all of the goals held by parents, practitioners, and policymakers,” the authors advocate five criteria that should be applied in the development of assessments moving forward:
  1. New assessments should tap the “higher-level” cognitive skills that allow students to transfer their learning to new situations
  2. Assessments should evaluate the critical abilities articulated in the standards, such as communication (speaking, reading, writing, and listening in multimedia forms), collaboration, modeling, complex problem solving, research, experimentation, and evaluation
  3. Assessments should be as rigorous as those of the leading education countries, in terms of the kinds of tasks they present as well as the level of performance they expect
  4. Assessment tasks should also represent the curriculum content in ways that respond to instruction and have value for guiding and informing teaching
  5. An assessment should represent well the knowledge and skills it intends to measure, be used appropriately for intended purposes, and have positive consequences for instruction and for test-takers, guiding better decisions rather than restricting opportunities
All of these points seem reasonable.  All of these points seem like something the entire education community should strive for.  The big question, then, is whether any of the current testmakers — particularly those who construct and sell the dreaded “high-stakes tests” would say they don’t already adhere to these five criteria and won’t continue to follow as they develop new summative tests aligned to the Common Core.
Anyone, anyone?