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" I say "rough sketch" because, let's be honest, Arizona doesn't look like that. But it's also a rough sketch because you need far more than three colors of white board marker to tell the full story of the states' collaborations to build both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests. Related Posts Why Indiana Is Scaling Back Participation In Common Core Testing Consortia PARCC Before Today's Governing Board Meeting: Five Things To Know About PARCC Ritz: Pausing Common Core Rollout Keeps Standards, Assessments Aligned Education Next: Common Core Is A Set Of Standards, Not Curriculum Minnesota Warns Parents To Prepare For Lower Scores On New Common Core Tests How Michigan Might Provide A Template For States Hoping To Leave Common Core How Science & Social Studies Teachers Are Transitioning To The Common Core Topics The story isn't only complex because of Indiana's recent "pausing" of both the Common Core's implementation and the state's participation in the PARCC consortium. (Though state officials have stopped attending governing board meetings, Indiana hasn't officially left the group, so Elle still colored them blue.) Explaining to me why she mixed her work with my work of art, Elle broke it down like this: 20 states and the District of Columbia participate in PARCC: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Dakota*, Oklahoma** 24 states participate in Smarter Balanced: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Hawai'i, North Dakota*, Alaska*** * North Dakota participates in both PARCC and Smarter Balanced. ** Oklahoma announced this week it will develop its

"At Harriet Tubman Elementary in Newark, New Jersey, 5th grade teacher Yvonne Copprue-McLeod teaches a lesson about reading comprehension and answering open-ended questions using textual evidence. Ms. Copprue-McLeod's strategy for her lesson is to have students work in groups, using specific details from the text to draw inferences and answer questions about the main character in the text. This lesson is aligned with multiple 5th grade Common Core ELA standards (RL.5.1, RF.5.4, SL.5.1, SL.5.4)."

"How in the world are we supposed to apply the Common Core writing standards to teaching English language learners? We've been asking that question of ourselves and others over the past two years, and we suspect we're not the only educators doing so. After reviewing the many resources available that attempt to provide guidance to teachers of English language learners (see "Resources of Note") and combining what we've learned through our daily classroom experience, we've developed a tentative answer to that question. Educators need to keep in mind three crucial elements when teaching writing to English language learners (ELLs) in the context of the Common Core State Standards:"

"This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking, an ASCD book written by Erik Palmer and published in March 2014. You can use the study guide after you have read the book or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book but rather to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection. Most of the questions you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking."

"Curious about the Common Core tests that have generated so much debate and so many low scores in recent months? Now you can check them out yourself. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, has released hundreds of test questions that were given to students in 2015 - roughly equivalent to a full test's worth for each grade level and subject."

"The Curriculum Framework specifies what is to be taught for each subject in the curriculum. In Pennsylvania, Curriculum Frameworks include Big Ideas, Concepts, Competencies, and Essential Questions aligned to Standards and Assessment Anchors and, where appropriate, Eligible Content. "

"New tests being designed for students in nearly half the states in the country will take eight to 10 hours, depending on grade level, and schools will have a testing window of up to 20 days to administer them, according to guidance released today. The new information comes from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, one of the two big groups of states that are building tests in mathematics and English/language arts for the common standards. It answers one of the big, dangling questions that's attended the process of making these new tests: Given their promises to measure students' skills in a deeper, more nuanced way, partly through the use of extended performance tasks, just how long will these tests take?"

"It's time to leave sunny San Antonio and resume life in a much less sunny Portland. NSTA was a truly inspiring conference. While engaging science teaching and learning is currently happening in classrooms around the country, we're confident that it's only going to get better with the shifts that the Next Generation Science Standards will bring."

"These words, uttered by teachers, parents, and students, have been part of standardized testing folklore for many years. I've "just picked B" many times throughout my educational career, and I've survived to tell the tale. (I'm pretty sure I'm not alone!) As many current state-level accountability measures are dominated by multiple-choice questions with only four options, guessing has seemed almost strategic. Well, things are about to change. "

"RACE is the acronym we've adopted school-wide to help unify our teaching language and help students develop good answers. The thought is that even kindergarteners can start restating questions verbally and teachers in the youngest grades can use the vocabulary when they are modeling."

"t's Crazy Hair Day at Marshall Elementary School in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood-which is perfect, because Tufts University researcher Bárbara Brizuela has brought a hat. In the stovepipe style and made from oaktag paper, the hat is one foot tall. Brizuela then asks, "If I'm five and a half feet tall, how tall will I be with the hat on?" Second-grader Jasmine, smiley in a pink sweatsuit, answers, "Six and a half feet." Rather than say, "Right!" Brizuela offers another question: "How do you know?""

"To be college and career ready, students need to be able to read sufficiently complex texts on their own and gather evidence, knowledge, and insight from those texts. These close reading exemplars intend to model how teachers can support their students as they undergo the kind of careful reading the Common Core State Standards require. Each of these exemplars features the following: i) readings tasks in which students are asked to read and reread passages and respond to a series of text dependent questions; 2) vocabulary and syntax tasks which linger over noteworthy or challenging words and phrases; 3) discussion tasks in which students are prompted to use text evidence and refine their thinking; and 4) writing tasks that assess student understanding of the text."

"For example, ask questions to clarify if the student is asserting a fact, a feeling or an argument. How do we know it is a fact? A fact is a specific detail based on an objective truth. A feeling or an opinion is a value judgement that can neither be proven nor disproven. An argument is a way to utilize facts to validate your opinions, it can be considered a fact-filled opinion. Again, using these concepts as scaffolds and requiring the identification of the building blocks of successful argumentation will keep the peace when the blood is boiling."

"3. Know and Align the Standards or Outcomes There may come a time when learning will be so open that students will be able to learn whatever they want. However, in this day and age, we are accountable to learning standards and outcomes. This doesn't mean that we can't be flexible in how we help students reach these learning objectives. And personalized PBL can help us find that flexibility. As students generate their questions, project ideas, and products for learning, teachers must align their work to standards and outcomes, which means that teachers need to know their standards deeply in order to serve as translators of students' personalized projects to the standards. Teachers can create checklists of the standards, sub-standards, and outcomes to work through the "weeds" of hitting the standards through personalized projects, and they can use these checklists with students to co-create project ideas and assessments. See Edutopia's Building Rigorous Projects That Are Core to Learning for ideas."

"How do you know if something you read is true? Why should you care? We pose these questions this week in honor of News Engagement Day on Oct. 6, and try to answer them with resources from The Times as well as from Edutopia, the Center for News Literacy, TEDEd and the Newseum. "

"This section defines and explains the ten thematic strands that form the basis of the social studies standards. The explanations give examples of questions that are asked within each thematic strand, as well as brief overviews of the application of each strand in the early grades, middle grades, and high school."

Lately, I've been working with teachers on how to help students write more effective paragraphs and essays. We have found that students can quickly master Step 1-applying the three rules for determining if a statement is an argument or not (it includes debatable/arguable words; it includes cause/effect language, or it raises "How" or "Why" questions). But they need more scaffolding to move from Step 2 to Step 3.

"WHAT MAKES THE BAD TIMES UNIQUE ? THE BAD TIMES is the first graphic novel to be produced on the topic of the Great Hunger. Although it is aimed at young readers, like all graphic novels, it can be read and appreciated by people aged from 8 to 80. More than simply telling a good story based on a tragic event in Irish history, THE BAD TIMES contains many teachable and relatable moments that can introduce young people to issues that are relevant today - concerning social justice, human rights, emigration and dislocation, and love and humanity in the midst of catastrophe. To assist educators, a number of key curriculum questions have been created by Dr. Anne Dichele of Quinnipiac University and can be found HERE. Additionally, historical background and primary sources have been provided by Professor Christine Kinealy."

"he implementation of Common Core State Standards is intended to create change in our nation's public education system ... not put change in the pockets of the American publishing industry. "

"Dear Williamson County Schools Community Member: You may have heard the term Common Core State Standards. The State of Tennessee has adopted Common Core Standards for English language arts and mathematics, and Williamson County Schools has begun implementing these standards over the past few years. Williamson County Schools is already the highest performing school district in the State, and as Superintendent, I want to assure you that we will continue to build on our academic success working with the new State standards. "