Open the door to success with the CCSS This book shows how to leverage the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to equip all students—not just high achievers—for college and career. The authors helped lead their district in closing achievement gaps and increasing the number of students who completed four-year college programs. The results of their efforts show a remarkable increase in both excellence and equity in the content areas due to applying the authors’ research-based ACES framework: Acceleration rather than remediation Critical thinking Equity in education for all students Support Educators will find practical strategies that are applied and developed in model lessons linked to the CCSS and KSUS standards.

"We open up the Common Core State Standards process and product, revealing that both are constructions-partial and value laden. With this understanding, we hope readers will step forward to take active roles in the discussion of why CCSS as well as how CCSS." -Patrick Shannon Common Core is on everyone's lips. We all want answers about implementation and integration as well as about what constitutes "close reading" or "text complexity." But who is asking the big questions: Common to whom? Core of what? Standards toward what end? Closer Readings of the Common Core finally asks and answers those questions. Patrick Shannon convenes a conversation among some of the most respected members of the field. They examine the history and content of the standards, teasing out their implications for teachers and classrooms, critiquing their assumptions about students and learning, and looking at their portent for American education now and in the future. With compelling analysis from Shannon, Peggy Albers, Randy Bomer, Catherine Compton-Lilly, Curt Dudley-Marling, Elizabeth Jaeger, Marjorie Orellana, Sandra Wilde, and Maja Wilson, teachers, school leaders, and policy makers will have the understanding necessary to avoid passively receiving mandates. Instead they'll be able to ensure that instructional decision making remains meaningful and well-informed.

Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Reading and Writing Project have helped thousands of educators design their own pathways to the Common Core. Now, with Pathways to the Common Core, they are ready to help you find your way. Designed for teachers, school leaders, and professional learning communities looking to navigate the gap between their current literacy practices and the ideals of the Common Core, Pathways to the Common Core will help you: understand what the standards say, suggest, and what they don't say; recognize the guiding principles that underpin the reading and writing standards; identify how the Common Core's infrastructure supports a spiraling K-12 literacy curriculum; and scrutinize the context in which the CCSS were written and are being unrolled. In addition to offering an analytical study of the standards, this guide will also help you and your colleagues implement the standards in ways that lift the level of teaching and learning throughout your school.--

For the first time in history Americans face the prospect of a unified set of national standards for K-12 education. While this goal sounds reasonable, and Common Core has been presented as a state-led effort, it is anything but. This book analyzes Common Core from the standpoint of its deleterious effects on curriculum--language arts, mathematics, history, and more--as well as its questionable legality, its roots in the aggressive spending of a few wealthy donors, its often-underestimated costs, and the untold damage it will wreak on American higher education. At a time when more and more people are questioning the wisdom of federally-mandated one-size-fits-all solutions, Drilling through the Core offers well-considered arguments for stopping Common Core in its tracks.

How the Common Core standardizes our kids’ education—and how it threatens our democracy. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is one of the most controversial pieces of education policy to emerge in decades. Detailing what and when K–12 students should be taught, it has led to expensive reforms and displaced other valuable ways to educate children. In this nuanced and provocative book, Nicholas Tampio argues that, though national standards can raise the education bar for some students, the democratic costs outweigh the benefits. To make his case, Tampio describes the history, philosophy, content, and controversy surrounding the Common Core standards for English language arts and math. He also explains and critiques the Next Generation Science Standards, the Advanced Placement US History curriculum framework, and the National Sexuality Education Standards. Though each set of standards has admirable elements, Tampio asserts that democracies should disperse education authority rather than entrust one political or pedagogical faction to decide the country’s entire philosophy of education. Ultimately, this lively and accessible book presents a compelling case that the greater threat to democratic education comes from centralized government control rather than from local education authorities.

It's not what students know, but what they do with what they know that is important Schools are changing in response to this reality, and in Transforming Schools Using Project-Based Learning, Performance Assessment, and Common Core Standards, Bob Lenz, Justin Wells, and Sally Kingston draw on the example of the Envision Education schools, as well as other leading schools around the country, to show how the concept of deeper learning can meet the need for students who are both college and career ready and engaged in their own education. In this book, the authors explain how project-based learning can blend with Common Core-aligned performance assessment for deeper learning. You'll discover how many schools have successfully made the transition from traditional, teacher-centered learning to project-based, deeper learning and find many practical ideas for implementation. Companion DVD and website include videos showing how to implement deeper learning strategies in the classroom Evidence-based descriptions show why deeper learning is right for students Performance assessment experts explain how to align assessments with Common Core by shifting the emphasis from knowing to doing Extensive game plan section provides step-by-step guidance for change Schools are complex organizations, and transformation involves all of the stakeholders, from students to superintendents. But as this book shows, there are amazing benefits to be realized when everyone commits to diving deeper into learning.

Explore strategies for integrating the Common Core State Standards for English language arts for grades 9–12 in this resource, which focuses on areas of instruction, curriculum, assessment, and intervention. You’ll also learn how to implement the CCSS within the powerful PLC at WorkTM process. Critical chapter-opening questions guide discussion and help you leverage the CCSS to optimize student learning.