MBTAAnalysis: A look inside the MBTA

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The MBTA shuttles over a million passengers a day around Greater…

The Clock is Ticking…….

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The clock is ticking towards December 30, 2017.  As part of…

One-Page Primer on Common Core: Cost

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Significant new costs are projected in three key areas of standards-based reform: assessment, professional development, and textbooks and instructional materials. In addition, states and local communities are expected to face substantial new expenditures for technology infrastructure and support.

Summary: National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards

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All but five (5) states have committed to adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and mathematics and are participating in one of the federally-sponsored consortia developing aligned assessments (see Figure I ). Few of the participants, however, have carefully analyzed the costs involved.

National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards

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It is the purpose of this study to stimulate an informed policy dialogue about the likely costs of implementing the Common Core standards. The nationwide calculations are intended to encourage similar, more detailed efforts in individual states that take into account additional local considerations.

The Road to a National Curriculum

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Kent D. Talbert is a co-founder of Talbert & Eitel, PLLC. His practice includes legal services to colleges and universities, accrediting agencies, the K-12 education sector, charter school organizations, professional and trade organizations, and others in the education sector. Prior to establishing the firm, he served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Education from 2006-2009, where he acted as the chief legal adviser to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

Testimony to the Joint Education Committee

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"Testimony to the Joint Education Committee" was provided in May 2011.

Review of Common Core Math Standards: Testimony to the California Academic Content Standards Commission

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Testimony to the California Academic Content Standards Commission provided in July 2010.

National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade

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The case for national standards rests in part on the need to remedy the inconsistent purposes and inferior quality of many state standards and tests in order to equalize academic expectations for all students. The argument also addresses the urgent need to increase academic achievement for all students.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

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The academic and economic implications of Common Core's definition of college and career readiness standards in ELA and mathematics should be receiving extensive examination by every local and state school board in the country, by editorial boards in all major media, and by the U.S. Congress before cash-strapped states are coerced by the USED's criteria for RttT funds, membership in test consortia, or Title I funds into committing themselves to Common Core's standards. That they have not is perhaps the most serious matter of all.

Fair to Middling: A National Standards Progress Report

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The purpose of this April 2010 progress report is to indicate how Common Core's March drafts have addressed the deficiencies and limitations in its September and January drafts, and to spell out major areas needing further work. The analysis we present in this progress report shows that, although progress has been made, considerably more work is needed, particularly at the secondary level, to enable Common Core's mathematics and English language arts (ELA) standards to be internationally benchmarked and to serve as the basis for valid and reliable high school exit level assessments.

Why Race to the Middle?

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In short, the rush to move from 50 state standards to a single set of standards for 50 states in less than one year, as well as the lack of transparency in CCSSI’s procedures, have excluded the kind and extent of public discussion merited by the huge policy implications of such a move.

Summary: The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, and Conditional Waivers

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Despite three federal laws that prohibit the federal government from directing, supervising or controlling elementary and secondary school curricula, programs of instruction and instructional materials, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) has placed the nation on the road to a national curriculum, according to a new Pioneer report written by Robert S. Eitel and Kent D. Talbert, two former counsels general to the USDOE.