Curriculum & Instruction

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Commentary
11.25.2014
Advanced Education, Curriculum & Instruction

Punishing achievement in our schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

President Obama’s contempt for the Constitution, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s unfortunate disregard of that document, have been loudly and justly decried by critics of executive overreach. Less heralded, but equally troubling, is the mission creep of the Office for Civil Rights as it works to reshape the education world and to right whatever alleged wrongs it thinks it sees.

Commentary
11.25.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

Ten rules for teaching reading with prior knowledge

Tim Shanahan

[Editor's note: This is part two of a multi-part series on the use of prior knowledge in literacy. It originally appeared in a slightly different form at Tim Shanahan's blog, Shanahan on Reading.

Commentary
11.24.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

Prior knowledge: Can we really level the playing field?

Tim Shanahan

[Editor's note: This is part one of a multi-part series on the use of prior knowledge in literacy. It originally appeared in a slightly different form at Tim Shanahan's blog, Shanahan on Reading.]

Commentary
10.13.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

What's right about Common Core

Robert Pondiscio

I confess I’m somewhat bewildered by the passionate arguments over the Common Core State Standards. Getting in high dudgeon about K–12 learning standards, which say almost nothing about what kids do in school all day, makes no more sense to me than getting apoplectic about food-handling procedures, which I seldom think about when pushing my cart through the grocery store.

Commentary
10.1.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

How to kill reading achievement

Robert Pondiscio

There’s more to Common Core than “close reading.” Robert Pondiscio

Commentary
9.24.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

Leveled reading: The making of a literacy myth

Robert Pondiscio

Among opponents of the Common Core, one of the more popular targets of vitriol is the standards’ focus on improving literacy by introducing higher levels of textual complexity into the instructional mix.

Commentary
9.23.2014
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

Montgomery County's elementary school curriculum: Where's the beef?

Michael J. Petrilli

It was back-to-school night last week at my son’s elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland, which meant that we moms and dads got a first look at “Learning for the Future: A Parent’s Guide to Grade 1 Curriculum 2.0.”

Commentary
9.17.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Is character education the answer?

Over the last few years, there has been a growing awareness of the need to incorporate character development into school curricula, and various efforts to do so have received wide attention. Perhaps the best-known effort is the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, which has been implemented in close to 150 charter schools across the country.

Commentary
9.17.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

Where Common Core is not controversial

Robert Pondiscio

For over a year, I’ve been encouraging Common Core advocates to stop endlessly re-litigating the standards and instead to focus on getting implementation right. Taking my own advice last week, I traveled to Reno to see first-hand the work of the Core Task Project, the initiative driving implementation of the standards in Washoe County, Nevada.

Commentary
9.17.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Getting Classroom Observations Right

Jessica Poiner

In many school districts, classroom observations make up as much as 75 percent of teachers’ evaluation scores, according to a new study published in Education Next. And these scores predict a teacher’s ability to raise student test scores the following year, as measured by value-added models.

Commentary
9.17.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession

In The Teacher Wars, reporter Dana Goldstein offers a stirring account of the 175-year history of the public school teaching profession. The book, which ought to be required reading for education reformers and status-quo defenders alike, notes some obvious but oft-overlooked realities.

Commentary
9.10.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

The challenges of AP History: Are you sure you want college credit?

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Much of the criticism recently leveled at the College Board’s new framework for its Advanced Placement United States history course and exam is hysterical and undeserved. There’s also reason to suspect that some of the harshest critics may be motivated at least in part by the riches they have reaped by prepping high school kids for the old version of the test.

Commentary
9.10.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Teacher Evaluations in an Era of Rapid Change

Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.

Hoping to gather lessons from recent teacher-evaluation reforms, a new report by Bellwether Education Partners analyzes four years of teacher-evaluation data from seventeen states and D.C. It is more a policy analysis than an empirical study.

Commentary
9.10.2014
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

Common Core and the era of good behavior

We seemed to have welcomed good manners back to the Common Core debate. That doesn’t mean we’ve seen more advocacy either on behalf of the standards or knocking them, only that the tenor appears to have changed for the better. At least for the time being, detractors are no longer paranoid Neanderthals, and supporters have ceased to be communists on the federal or Gates Foundation dole.

Commentary
9.3.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

5 questions for Rick Hess

Michael J. Petrilli

In NRO today, Rick Hess explores “five half-truths” that he says supporters of the Common Core like to propagate. These spurred five questions of my own:

Commentary
8.27.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Making teaching teachable

Robert Pondiscio

Many of our recent ed-reforms—e.g. Teach for America, alternative certification, the Hamilton Project, and various “new teacher” projects—implicitly subscribe to the idea that great teachers are born, not made. Ed schools, too, largely consider “training” teachers to be beneath their dignity. Hence the path to instructional excellence is to welcome all sorts of smart people into the classroom via all sorts of entry paths, then weed out those who don’t cut it.

Commentary
8.20.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

The Science and Success of Engelmann's Direct Instruction

Most reformers know there’s no cure-all for American education. Nevertheless, in The Science and Success of Engelmann’s Direct Instruction, the authors argue that a panacea not only exists but has been around for half a century.

Commentary
8.20.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

At last, accountability for textbook publishers?

Nearly all American K–12 students are exposed to it every day. It decides, in large part, what students will learn in school and how they will learn it. It is never evaluated for quality in any serious way, but when it is rigorously evaluated, its impact on student achievement is significant.

Commentary
7.31.2014
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

A few reflections on the Common Core Wars

Michael J. Petrilli

Monday’s Politico story on the messaging battle over the Common Core has kicked up another round of recriminations, particularly on the Right.

Commentary
7.25.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Not teacher quality, but quality teaching

Robert Pondiscio

I’m looking forward to Elizabeth Green’s forthcoming book Building a Better Teacher. A sneak preview will run in the New York Times

Commentary
7.23.2014
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

Close reading: A revolution delayed

Kathleen Porter-Magee

For all of the talk about how different reading instruction is meant to be in the Common Core era, and for all of the hand wringing over the critical “instructional shifts” embedded in the new literacy standards, a glimpse at the world of classroom implementation reveals that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Commentary
7.3.2014
Curriculum & Instruction, Standards

Why Johnny won’t learn to read

Robert Pondiscio

Bad ideas in education are like horror movie monsters. You think you’ve killed them, but they refuse to stay dead.A generation ago, the infamous “reading wars” pitted phonics-based instruction in the early grades against “whole language,” which emphasized reading for meaning instead of spelling, grammar, and sounding words out.

Commentary
7.2.2014
Standards, Curriculum & Instruction

A missed opportunity for Common Core

Robert Pondiscio

Last week, I had the privilege to speak in front of a group of education journalists convened by the Poynter Institute and the Education Writers Association about identifying strengths and weaknesses in curriculum.

Commentary
6.27.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

The ‘balanced literacy’ hoax

Chester E. Finn, Jr.

My chief mentor, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, occasionally warned against “semantic infiltration,” which he correctly attributed to the late arms-control expert, Fred Ikle.

Commentary
5.30.2014
Curriculum & Instruction

Common Core confusion: It’s a math, math world

Kathleen Porter-Magee

Here’s a puzzler: Why are the Common Core math standards accused of fostering “fuzzy math” when their drafters and admirers insist that they emphasize basic math, reward precision, and demand fluency? Why are CC-aligned curricula causing confusion and frustration among parents, teachers, and students?