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US states spurred by the promise of $350 million in Race to the Top money for improved tests-as well as an opportunity to strengthen bids for part of the federal fund's larger $4 billion pot are scrambling to join consortia to develop common assessments.

Articulated Instruction Module or AIM, was designed by a longtime school system employee, Baltimore County school administrators have ordered all teachers to begin using it. AIM will require teachers to judge whether each of their students has mastered more than 100 specific skills.

Formative Assessment, assessing student performance routinely as instruction unfolds can transform teaching and learning. Writer actively experimented with giving more feedback to my students, using rubrics, models of student work, and having students assess their own work as well as that of their peers. Problem is Baltimore County school administrators have ordered all teachers to begin using a grading system next month that will require them to judge whether each of their students has mastered more than 100 specific skills. Elementary school teachers have classes of 25 kids while highschool teachers can have more than 100 students. Over the course of a year, many teachers would have to make as many as 10,000 marks indicating whether a child had learned a task.

A National Curriculum is all well and good, but many unanswered questions hang over its implementation across the country, writes Annabel Astbury

Create an account, review and comment on the first phase - draft K-10 curriclum in English, History, mats and science.  15 min intro video on front page gives overview

"ACARA is the independent authority responsible for the development of a national curriculum, a national assessment program and a national data collection and reporting program that supports 21st century learning for all Australian students.

Australian group responsible for national curriculum and assessment program.

This paper discusses four key concerns about this current situation and proposes and justifies a solution whereby ICT would be a learning area in its own right, either within the framework of the Technologies or as a new learning area. Structurally this learning area would document the student learning expectations and standards for ICT as a GC as well as a discipline.