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Posts Tagged ‘common core state standards’

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New NASDCTEc Brief: Integrating the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

NASDCTEc is releasing today an issue brief, Achieve and State CTE Directors: Integrating the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education, that describes a pilot project to help educators integrate the Common Core standards and Career Technical Education (CTE). Achieve and NASDCTEc jointly created the project to guide educators as they develop instructional tasks that integrate CTE-focused standards, the National Career ClustersTM Knowledge and Skills Statements, into their lessons.

The issue brief also features updates from State Directors in two states, Illinois and Nebraska, where the project is being implemented.

To learn more, please join us this afternoon, March 20th at 2:00 pm EST, as we discuss the project in detail on a webinar.

Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst  

By admin in Publications, Webinars
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Register for NASDCTEc Webinar Tomorrow: Integrating the Common Core Standards and CTE

Monday, March 19th, 2012

As states and districts begin to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), teachers may need to redesign their lessons and classroom activities to ensure that course content is rigorous and aligned to the CCSS. To help teachers and education leaders address this challenge, Achieve and NASDCTEc have joined to pilot a process in which secondary and postsecondary educators develop and evaluate instructional tasks that demonstrate how for high school mathematics expectations can be applied using Career Technical Education (CTE) content. Hear about the process, pilot results, and future plans for using the protocol.

Dean Folkers, Deputy Executive Director of NASDCTEc/NCTEF, and a representative from Achieve, will discuss the implementation and outcomes of the initiative. Mark Williams, CTE State Director in Illinois, will describe his state’s role in the pilot project.

Please join us for our webinar tomorrow: Tuesday, March 20th from 2:00 – 3:00 pm EST. Register now!

Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst

By admin in Webinars
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NCES Releases Version 2 of Common Education Data Standards

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

In an effort to make data more usable and comparable, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in collaboration with education stakeholder groups, has established voluntary standards that will help states develop their statewide longitudinal data systems by bringing consistency to the way we talk about education across learner levels and sectors.

The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) are a shared vocabulary for education data to improve the consistency of definitions used across the states. NCES recently released its second version of CEDS that focuses on postsecondary elements in addition to the K-12 elements found in the first version.

The CEDS Web site lets users view the CEDS in three ways – by element, relationship, or comparison. For example, a user looking for a definition of a Career Technical Education (CTE) completer would type their query into the search field. Under “Career and Technical Education Completer,” the user would find a common definition, an alternate name, related categories, and other notes.

The Data Quality Campaign hosted a webinar on the topic last week, and a recording and slides are now available. During the webinar, NCES Commissioner Jack Buckley said that many comments from CTE stakeholders were received during the development of the latest version of CEDS, and that NCES plans to create a subgroup for CTE in the next version of CEDS.

To learn more, visit the Common Education Data Standards Web site.

Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst

By admin in Research
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Webinar: Achieve and State CTE Directors: Integrating the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education

Friday, February 24th, 2012

As states and districts begin to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), teachers may need to redesign their lessons and classroom activities to ensure that course content is rigorous and aligned to the CCSS. To help teachers and education leaders address this challenge, Achieve and NASDCTEc have joined to pilot a process in which secondary and postsecondary educators develop and evaluate instructional tasks that demonstrate how for high school mathematics expectations can be applied using Career Technical Education (CTE) content. Hear about the process, pilot results, and the plans for the future related to using the protocol.

Dean Folkers, Deputy Executive Director of NASDCTEc/NCTEF, and a representative from Achieve, will discuss the implementation and outcomes of the initiative. Mark Williams, CTE State Director in Illinois, will describe his state’s role in the pilot project.

Title: Achieve and State CTE Directors: Integrating the Common Core State Standards and Career Technical Education

Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 pm EST

Register here.

Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst

By admin in Webinars
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Eleven States Submit ESEA Waiver Applications

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Eleven states submitted applications to the U.S. Department of Education on Monday to obtain a waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. These states’ applications will be examined by peer reviewers after Thanksgiving, and winning states will be notified by mid- January.

As part of their applications, states were asked to demonstrate how they plan to implement college- and career-ready standards and tie state tests to them; adopt a differentiated accountability system that focuses on the bottom 15 percent of schools; and craft guidelines for teacher- and principal-evaluation systems that will be based partly on student growth and be used for personnel decisions. The waivers will eliminate the 2014 deadline for bringing all students to proficiency in math and reading, eliminate NCLB sanctions for schools, and provide district officials with greater flexibility to use Title I funds.

Thirty-nine states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled their intent to apply for an NCLB waiver. The next deadline for states to submit applications is in mid-February.

Nancy Conneely, Public Policy Manager

 

By admin in Legislation
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Fall Meeting: Improving Program Quality: Standards

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

The importance of standards to influence the expectations of quality learning continues to expand across the nation. States continue to identify strategies for implementation and integration of the common core state standards using national and state resources, as reported at the recent fall meeting in Baltimore.

Dr. Karen L. Alexander, Family and Consumer Sciences Education, Texas Tech University provided a very insightful view of Achieve Texas: Promoting a Local College and Career Ready Culture initiative. The vertical alignment project resulted in standards that are now available under the P-16 initiative section at Texas Higher Education Commission website. The resulting crosswalks ensure that CTE courses integrate academic standards and career preparation skills and waited standards and skills can be applied to real-world. A copy of her PowerPoint is available at www.careertech.org.

Kate Blosveren-Kreamer, who is the Associate Director, Strategic Communications and Outreach, at Achieve, Inc., provided a compelling and thoughtful update on the processes associated with state implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In addition, she provided an update on the creation of educational exemplars that integrate the CCSS of math and English language arts with the CTE Knowledge and Skill Statements. The pilot project began in Illinois and build from the process rubric that identified alignment and the intensity of that alignment for tasks targeted in the Pre-Design Construction Pathway. Opportunities for additional states to participate in this work is available.

Mark Williams, Illinois State CTE Director, provided a deeper of the protocol and process utilized to create the math and CTE exemplars. Expanding the use of the protocol to engage additional program areas has led to an expansion of resources developed within the state. The importance of ensuring that all students are college and career ready continues to be an important goal to achieve.

Dr. Dean R. Folkers, Deputy Executive Director, National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc), provided an overview of the revision process of the Career Cluster(TM) Knowledge and Skills revision and the emergence of the Common Career Technical Core to support a state led development of common career technical standards among states. The unique opportunity to support a common expectation, among states, allows for an equity of opportunity among student learning experiences, and supports a clearer alignment to the Common Core State Standards in the emerging Next-Generation Science Standards.

The presentations and supporting resources are available at www.careertech.org

 

Dean Folkers, Deputy Executive Director

By admin in Career Clusters®, Resources, Uncategorized
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Legislative Update: American Jobs Act, ESEA, Bills Introduced

Friday, October 14th, 2011

American Jobs Act Fails in the Senate

Earlier this week the Senate voted on a Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 1660, the American Jobs Act. However, the motion failed to muster the 60 votes necessary to break cloture and formally consider the bill. As a result, the Senate plans to break the President’s jobs package up into pieces and vote on each one individually. The House has not indicated whether they will vote on the bill in the coming weeks.

Senate Introduces Comprehensive ESEA Draft

On Tuesday Senator Tom Harkin (IA) introduced the long anticipated Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act of 2011. According to Harkin, the bill will set high expectations for all children to graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers, support teachers and principals to help them provide high quality instruction, ensure disadvantaged students get their fair share of resources, focus federal attention on turning around low-performing schools and closing achievement gaps, and remove federal barriers to give states and communities the flexibility they need to innovate.

The bill would eliminate some of the more controversial vestiges of No Child Left Behind, and it would codify into law some of President Obama’s top education reform priorities:

We are still working through the draft bill to see how it affects the Perkins Act and CTE. We will provide a CTE-specific summary next week. The bill is scheduled to be marked up next week, beginning on Tuesday afternoon. The markup is expected to take four days.

Bills Introduced

Education for Tomorrow’s Jobs Act

Rep. Glenn Thompson (PA) and Sen. Bob Casey (PA) introduced the Education for Tomorrow’s Jobs Act this week, H.R. 3154 and S. 1686 respectively. This bill would amend Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to allow school districts to use Title I ESEA funds to better integrate academics with CTE through coursework and networks of schools. The bill would encourage school districts to link secondary school programs, including both middle and high schools, and align secondary and postsecondary education. Further, the bill would leverage a variety of school, employer and community partners.

Nancy Conneely, Public Policy Manager

 

 

 

By admin in Legislation
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College Faculty: Students Meeting Common Core Expectations are Ready for College

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

After rating the Common Core State Standards for applicability to entry-level college courses, postsecondary educators agree that most of the academic standards reflect the skills that students will need upon entering postsecondary education.

The findings were gleaned from a survey of postsecondary instructors from 2-year and 4-year institutions across the nation, including those in Career Technical Education (CTE) fields such as health care, computer technology and business management. Participants were asked to discuss the applicability of the standards to the instructor’s course, and to rate the importance of broad and detailed components of the academic standards to their course. Many found that most common core standards prioritize areas like critical thinking and problem-solving and reflect the knowledge and skills that students need for future success.

However, other respondents found the common core standards incomplete. The chief executive officer of the Education Policy Improvement Center, David Conley, stated that completely relying on these standards to judge a student’s preparedness could be misleading. “[Students] may possess only a subset of the knowledge and skills, strategies and techniques necessary to be fully ready for postsecondary success.” NASDCTEc is developing a common core of technical standards that will align with the common core standards and fill in some of these gaps to better prepare students for college and careers. Through CTE programs, students acquire more comprehensive knowledge and skills aligned to the expectations of postsecondary educators and employers.

Click here to view the survey and report.

Kara Herbertson, Education Policy Analyst

By admin in Research, Resources
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Draft Model Content Frameworks Feedback Deadline Extended to August 31

Friday, August 19th, 2011

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) has extended the deadline to submit feedback on draft model content frameworks to August 31. The change was made to provide the greatest number of stakeholders with the time needed to offer substantive and thorough comments.

The draft model content frameworks are being designed to develop K-12 assessments. PARCC, a 24-state consortium dedicated to creating common assessments, are aiming to align the assessments with the Common Core State Standards. PARCC received an $186 million Race to the Top grant to design an assessment system.

PARCC says the assessments will “build a pathway to college and career readiness by the end of high school, mark students’ progress toward this goal from 3rd grade up, and provide teachers with timely information to inform instruction and provide student support.”

Provide your feedback through PARCC’s survey by August 31.

By admin in News
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Duncan to Grant Waivers from NCLB Requirements

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Due to Congress’ failure to act on reauthorization, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it plans to offer states relief from some of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act in exchange for states’ support of the Administration’s education reform policies.

Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council, said during the announcement, “America’s future competitiveness is being decided today, in classrooms across the nation. With no clear path to a bipartisan bill in Congress, the President has directed us to move forward with an administrative process to provide flexibility within the law for states and districts that are willing to embrace reform.”

States will be given the opportunity to apply for a waiver from certain requirements in the law. These applications will be peer reviewed by individuals outside of the Department, but the final decision will belong to Secretary Duncan. The waivers would take effect during the 2011-2012 school year. Further details about the waivers will be released in September. However, rumors are swirling that states would be given waivers from NCLB’s 2014 proficiency deadline and more funding flexibility, in exchange for adopting college- or career-ready standards, creating differentiated accountability systems, and adopting teacher evaluation systems.

While the Secretary has clear legal authority to grant waivers from the law, it is not clear that he has the authority to make them conditional on support for the Administration’s reform policies.

By admin in Legislation
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