How Do You Teach Standards?

Common Core advocates, at least the disingenuous ones who don’t wring their hands about Federal involvement, will often say that even states who didn’t have Common Core could qualify for Race to the Top, as well as, an ESEA flexibility waiver if they have “college and career-ready” standards. They money the administration is spending tells a different story. Not only are they the primary funders of the Common Core assessment consortia, they just awarded the University of Pittsburgh a $2.5 million grant to develop training for the Common Core. The Pittsburgh Business Times reports: A team of researchers in the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center have been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to test and refine a training model used in manufacturing and healthcare to see if it works as well to support teachers transitioning into teaching the Common Core State Standards. Working with the Tennessee Department of Education, the aim is to rapidly improve education programs through continuous improvement research, a strategy pioneered in the business and healthcare sectors at companies like Toyota Motor Co. In the model, coaches will be trained in Common Core teaching and coaching methods and will then work closely with teachers in a small number of schools to assets them in implementing the new methods. Even as states are starting to repeal it they’re moving forward with funding. http://americanprinciplesproject.org/blog/tell-me-again-how-the-obama-ad...