Group items tagged

Having teachers individually rewrite their own curriculum is a recipe for classroom chaos.

Educational publishers have the resources to provide a wide variety of new materials that could facilitate these necessary changes. They have editorial departments that keep up to date on education research. They can make connections with education researchers so they can work with teams of writers and editors to develop materials. The publishers can have researchers spend months organizing and testing sequences of lessons to find out what best supports student learning. They have design and production departments to produce the materials in an appealing and accessible format for wide use. They can build professional development into these new materials, which could be a foundation for teaching educators about the common core. But publishers won’t do any of this if they don’t have to.

Instead of a well-considered evaluation of available materials, schools tend to adopt and purchase educational materials for superficial reasons, either because they don’t have time for a thorough evaluation or they have little faith in textbooks. But if textbooks are sold based on design or inconsequential elements, publishers will prioritize visual design and superficial features. This would represent an unfortunate cycle of repetition and promote the status quo.

On the other hand, educational publishers would bend over backwards to make effectiveness their top priority if the top-selling textbooks were those with the best sequence of lessons to develop each standard in depth, the most effective teaching methods, and the richest content. They would do the work that schools so desperately need. But to identify materials with effective characteristics, customers have to know what those characteristics are.

Contrary to what many think, some textbooks are superior to others and do, in fact, meet some of the standards with fidelity. If the most effective materials for a particular population of students, such as higher- or lower-achieving students, were available to teachers, they could use them and focus their energies on meeting the needs of their students. Instead, many must devote time and energy to writing curriculum, although few have any experience in this demanding work. Teachers need to know and understand the new standards, but they should also be able to distinguish materials that faithfully reflect the standards from those that do not.

How can schools identify the most effective materials?

• Establish an adoption team to analyze potential materials. I

Next, the adoption team should establish evaluation criteria for curricula and then employ those criteria to analyze instructional materials.

Finally, the team should confirm that instructional materials in use share specific characteristics: The development of each required standard at a grade level is comprehensive, with a clear introduction, development, practice, and assessment. Content, readability, and skill expectations are appropriate for the population of students. Organization promotes natural learning progressions and logical development of skills and concepts. Lessons include an engaging and appropriate mix of learning activities and experiences that develop the critical concepts as identified by the standards. Teaching methods reflect effective practices as identified by research and experience. Materials support a change in teaching practices and are different from materials currently in use.

textbook publishers, who have invested tens of millions of dollars in their textbook series, are doing the minimum necessary to address the new standards.

it is unrealistic to expect that they will re-envision their materials if they don’t have to

if textbook publishers simply relabel their existing content without considering the intention of the standards, they will perpetuate the status quo and will not support the educational improvements the standards promise.

Adoption of the common core should result in improvements in student achievement. If educators do not change, student achievement will not change.

What is required of educators is the careful, intelligent, well-considered selection of content necessary to meet the standards; lessons that are sequenced to support student-learning trajectories; and teaching methods that are based on evidence of effectiveness.

Instead of a well-considered evaluation of available materials, schools tend to adopt and purchase educational materials for superficial reasons, either because they don’t have time for a thorough evaluation or they have little faith in textbooks.

On the other hand, educational publishers would bend over backwards to make effectiveness their top priority if the top-selling textbooks were those with the best sequence of lessons to develop each standard in depth, the most effective teaching methods, and the richest content.

Contrary to what many think, some textbooks are superior to others and do, in fact, meet some of the standards with fidelity.

eachers need to know and understand the new standards, but they should also be able to distinguish materials that faithfully reflect the standards from those that do not.

Schools have it in their power to improve student achievement. They can take the selection of educational materials more seriously, selecting the most effective resources available, allowing the free market to promote continual improvement as it does in other industries.

How can schools identify the most effective materials?

Establish an adoption team to analyze potential materials.

The team’s first job should be to develop expertise in the common standards and find research that supports effective teaching methods and student-learning trajectories.

Next, the adoption team should establish evaluation criteria for curricula and then employ those criteria to analyze instructional materials. The criteria should evaluate: teaching methods that are based on research and evidence; student-learning trajectories that are the basis for the development of lessons and concepts; content that is accurate and comprehensive and that meets the common standards; and effectiveness that can be verified.

Finally, the team should confirm that instructional materials in use share specific characteristics: The development of each required standard at a grade level is comprehensive, with a clear introduction, development, practice, and assessment. Content, readability, and skill expectations are appropriate for the population of students. Organization promotes natural learning progressions and logical development of skills and concepts. Lessons include an engaging and appropriate mix of learning activities and experiences that develop the critical concepts as identified by the standards. Teaching methods reflect effective practices as identified by research and experience. Materials support a change in teaching practices and are different from materials currently in use.

"We get that test score, and we make that big inference that kids have been taught this," Mr. Elliott told the gathering of special education and testing experts, including members of the consortia that are designing common-core assessments and alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities. "Many students with disabilities need 30 to 40 more days of class time to get an equitable opportunity to learn."

And that disparity may only grow as the demanding common standards, in English/language arts and mathematics, are put in place.

Progress and Problems The major hurdle of increased, improved instruction aside, the technical and content issues posed by the exams are numerous, experts at the Education Department forum said.

Students with disabilities have become a bigger part of state accountability systems, albeit gradually, during the past 20 years, so that now even students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are included in state testing programs. One fundamental advantage to designing tests with students with disabilities in mind from the beginning is that, for the most part, the tests won't have to be adapted to work with those students after the fact, disability education experts have said. A need for such retrofitting is common with current state assessments.

One big issue lies with computer-adaptive tests, which pull from a bank of test questions with a wide range of difficulty. The computer adjusts the difficulty of the questions it poses based on a student's performance on previous questions. One problem with that approach is that some students may shut down if they miss the first question, Mr. Danielson said. Then there's the risk that the computer will throw a student a question that's below his or her grade level because of a series of incorrect answers that leads the computer to those questions, a possibility that concerns special education advocates.

Yet another issue is that states using exams developed for most students by one of the two consortia working on those tests will have to agree on a common set of acceptable test accommodations—adjustments made, in other words, to help students with disabilities access the test content as easily as classmates without disabilities.

Read-Aloud Debate Common accommodations include giving students additional time to take an exam, giving them a separate testing area, limiting questions to appearing one at a time, and adjusting the size of the typeface of the test. But one accommodation over which there is disagreement is whether, or how much, students should have test instructions or test content read aloud to them.