I believe I will stick with the team at Truth in Texas Textbooks and demand that my local school district does the same.
By Donna Garner
Sent by one of the anti-Common Core people in Missouri:
This was in Politico’s morning Education report:
A ‘CONSUMER REPORTS’ FOR THE COMMON CORE: A new nonprofit funded with $3 million from the Gates Foundation and the Helmsley Charitable Trust launches today with plans to review textbooks and other instructional material for fidelity to the Common Core.
EdReports.org will start by bringing in teams of classroom teachers to evaluate K-8 math materials. The curricula will be judged by how well it matches the Common Core and assesses student learning and by whether it offers teachers guidance in reaching children at all levels.
The group will post its ratings online and invite response from the publishers. Up first: Pearson’s enVision Math, McGraw-Hill’s Everyday Math, Houghton Mifflin’s Go Math and more than a dozen other widely used curricula.
EdReports will turn to high-school math and language arts in future years.– The project is led by Eric Hirsch, formerly of the New Teacher Center, and Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College. They say they hope districts will turn to their ratings to guide purchases. “Hopefully with great materials, great teachers and great standards, we will be able to move the needle on student achievement,” Hirsch said. Incoming NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia supports the effort; she says curriculum ratings could improve Common Core implementation “by shining a light” on quality materials.
So, once they have this rating system down, schools will know which curriculums to pick because they will be rated the highest. They will “shine a light” on quality materials and conversly throw mud on materials that may be very good but are not aligned to CC by either rating them poorly or not even rating them.
Notice that they plan to start reviewing Pearson and McGraw Hill first. Show me the school district that is going to pick a curriculum not highly rated?
This first attempt to regulate the use of “common core aligned” will create the de facto national curriculum. And what a surprise Gates is funding it!