Field notes: Curriculum in the trenches

I emerged from our Board of Ed Curriculum Committee meeting yesterday smiling.?

Curricular confusions

You shouldn't need 3-D glasses to see the need for a good curriculum. So why, then, does Neal McClaskey at Cato think that a national curriculum is ?not possible in this dimension??

Reading skills and strategies are a means to an end

Catherine Gewertz has a piece in this week's Education Week describing a New York City pilot program that has teachers analyzing the complexity of the texts they will be assigned in their classrooms. As you probably remember, text complexity features prominently in the Common Core standards.

Do we really want a common curriculum?

Robert Pondiscio over at Core Knowledge wrote a very thoughtful response to my post the other day.

Rational thinking on common curricula

Over in the more feverish corners of the blogosphere, and sometimes even in saner locales, the Shanker Institute's call for "common content" curriculum to accompany the Common Core standards has triggered a panic attack.

Stop seeking curricular solutions to instructional problems

There continues to be a lot of discussion around the idea of creating a ?common? curriculum to supplement the Common Core State Standards. Robert Pondiscio over at Core Knowledge applauds the move, arguing that, while the CCSS are ?praiseworthy,?

Hey schools: Don't charge extra for extra-curriculars

Of the many dumb ways to close budget holes, perhaps the one most worthy of the title "self-inflicted wound" is the move to reduce the number of extra-curricular activities offered to students (or to pass along the costs to families in the form of fees).

States should focus on assessments, not curriculum

Today, education leaders from across the nation (including our own Checker Finn) came together to endorse the idea of creating a national, voluntary, common curriculum that would be designed to supplement the national, voluntary, Common Core ELA and math standards.

Arts education on the ropes

Last week, the National Endowment of the Arts released a new analysis showing a sharp decline in participation in arts education nationwide, with particularly bad news for African-Americans and Hispanics.

Our obsession with tests

Just when I thought we were making progress in devising a national core curriculum, everyone is already talking about tests based on the Common Core, which is still in its infancy.?

Remembrances from the front line

It's been over two years since I stood in front of a class of high schoolers, explaining the formula for the area of a triangle and what pacifism looks like in practice (I taught at a pull-out special-education school, and my courseload was more varied than that of my students). It almost feels like another lifetime.

Texas history standards: Correcting for liberal bias, and then some

Time for change

Harvard's Graduate School of Education released today?a report, Pathways to Prosperity, which, to judge by the heft of those who contributed to the document's ?Advance Praise?

Blogging "Teach Like a Champion"

I downloaded Teach Like Champion 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov this weekend, and have scarcely been able to put it down.

Like the tide, great standards lift all boats

There's a debate brewing about how much???if at all???great standards contribute to education reform. This week, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying that they are not as important to student achievement as universal choice.

Common Core education standards get A- and B from Fordham experts

Anyone who's been following the debate over national standards knows that two weeks ago, the National Governors Association (NGA) together with the Council of Chief State Schools Officers (CCSSO) released the much-anticipated public draft of the K-12 math and English language arts (ELA) Common Core State Standards.[quote]

Can failing schools be turned around or is it better to close them?

Watch our debate on school turnarounds vs. closures, and don't miss insightful and provocative comments from the panelists, including this one from Andres Alonso, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools:

Open source education

You can find whatever your heart desires on the internet, and that's in part thanks to something called open source. It's a bit of an amorphous term, but that hasn't stopped this Utah virtual charter school from diving in to this potentially revolutionizing movement. Open source is just as its name implies--open.

Today's Quotable and Notable

Quotable: "I think it would be a tragedy to talk about Martin Luther King Jr., while not being able to talk about the fact that he had a strong Christian faith. I'm hoping that's not the direction we're headed." - Jonathan Saenz, Lobbyist, Free Market Foundation

The implications of tracking and detracking

Our latest report, "Tracking and Detracking: High Achievers in Massachusetts Middle Schools ," analyzes the implications of tracking, or grouping students i

Flypaper readers debate Education Schools and MUCH more

A week ago, I posted this in response to Secretary Duncan's speech about education schools at Teachers College. Over the course of several days, there were 11 comments posted that, when printed out, clocked in at 20 pages (single spaced, mind you).

Arne Duncan and the E.D. Hirsch imperative

Whew, I just finished reading Secretary Duncan's??meaty address to the faculty and students at Teachers College at Columbia University.

Fordham's newest report assesses Common Core education standards

The Fordham Institute's newest report???-Stars By Which to Navigate? Scanning National and International Education Standards in 2009--reviews the ???Common Core???

Unschooling: the worst education idea... ever?

The worst education idea of the year turns out not to be a new idea at all. "Unschooling" has roots in Rousseau, in Summerhill, in John Holt and Ivan Illich and any number of other progressive/romantic/libertarian nihilists.

Today's 'Quotable and Notable'

Quotable

Today's 'Quotable and Notable'

Quotable

David Whitman interview

David Whitman, fresh off of being honored by the American Independent Writers, has now done an interview with EducationNews.org about his book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City S

The California Reading Revival

Over at the "ELL Advocates" blog, whole language apologist Stephen Krashen makes a lame attempt to poke holes in Sol Stern's recent Fordham r

Too much

For the same reason I'm opposed to sex-ed class in schools, I'm opposed to clubs like this. A parent sends his students to a public school to receive a rigorous education in the core curriculum.