Teaching and Learning with the New York Times A common core lesson - history, behavioral studies, Language Arts, Life skills, thinking and reasoning

When the results of the latest international assessment-the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA-were released, our national leaders sounded an alarm about a national "crisis in education." Our students scored in the middle of the pack! We are not No. 1! Shanghai is No. 1! We are doomed unless we overtake Shanghai! President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan warned ominously that our nation was having a "Sputnik moment." We have fallen behind the global competition in education, they cried, evoking comparison with the Soviet Union's launch of a space satellite in 1957. At that time, the media and the politicians predicted that the Soviets would soon rule the world, and we know how that turned out. Now the politicians would like to use the latest test scores to promote their "reform" agenda for the schools: more charter schools, more reliance on competition and free-market strategies, more testing, more use of test scores to evaluate teachers, more firing of principals and teachers, more closing of low-scoring schools. Our leaders in Washington would have us believe that they know how to close the achievement gap and how to overtake the highest-performing nations in the world. PISA proves that they don't. Consider the two top contenders on PISA: Shanghai and Finland. These two places-one a very large city of nearly 21 million, the other a small nation of less than six million-represent two very different approaches to education. The one thing they have in common is that neither of the world leaders in education is doing what American reformers propose. According to the OECD, the international group that sponsors PISA, the schools of Shanghai-like those in all of China-are dominated by pressure to get higher scores on examinations. OECD writes:

PISA 2009 Assessment Framework - Key Competencies in Reading, Mathematics and Science Are students prepared to meet the challenges of the future? Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their ideas effectively? How well equipped are they to continue learning throughout life? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) aims to answer these questions through three-yearly surveys that examine 15-year-old students' performance in reading, mathematics and science. The first three surveys addressed these subjects in 2000, 2003 and 2006, respectively. PISA 2009 focuses on reading and thus begins a second full cycle of the survey. PISA 2009 Assessment Framework presents the theory behind the development of the latest survey. The re-worked and expanded framework for reading literacy includes not only the assessment of reading and understanding printed texts, but also an innovative component to assess how well students read, navigate and understand electronic texts. Additionally, this publication provides the basis for measuring mathematical and scientific competencies. Finally, it presents the theory behind the questionnaires used to gather information from students, schools and parents on students' home backgrounds, students' approaches to learning and school learning environments.

Learning Mathematics for Life: A Perspective from PISA People from many countries have expressed interest in the tests students take for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Learning Mathematics for Life examines the link between the PISA test requirements and student performance. It focuses specifically on the proportions of students who answer questions correctly across a range of difficulty. The questions are classified by content, competencies, context and format, and the connections between these and student performance are then analysed. This analysis has been carried out in an effort to link PISA results to curricular programmes and structures in participating countries and economies. Results from the student assessment reflect differences in country performance in terms of the test questions. These findings are important for curriculum planners, policy makers and in particular teachers - especially mathematics teachers of intermediate and lower secondary school classes.

2009 PISA What do students know and what can they do? Policy experience videos on Canada, Finland, Poland and Shanghai produced by the Pearson Foundation Presentation of PISA in the US by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría

PISA 2009 Results PISA 2009 Results presents the findings from the most recent PISA survey, which focused on reading and also assessed mathematics and science performance. The report comprises six volumes:

Webinars Carnegie learning founded by cognitive and computer scientists from carnegie Mellon University in conjunction with veteran mathematics teachers, carnegie Learning has the courage to not only question the traditional way of teaching math, but re-invent it.

School Culture transformation Believers tweeners Survivors fundamentalists

California State Academic Content Standards Commission On January 7, 2010, the Governor signed into law Senate Bill X5 1 (Steinberg). The bill calls for California's academic content standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics to be examined against the Common Core Standards that were released in final form on June 2, 2010. The bill also calls for the establishment of the California Academic Content Standards Commission. The Governor and Legislature have made the required appointments to the commission

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English-language arts and mathematics were adopted by the State Board of Education (SBE) on August 2, 2010. The CCSS were developed through a state-led initiative to establish consistent and clear education standards for English-language arts and mathematics that would better prepare students for success in the competitive global economy. Senate Bill 1 from the fifth Extraordinary Session (SB X5 1) created the Academic Content Standards Commission (ACSC). The duty of the ACSC was to develop and recommend academic content standards to the SBE

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