Forbes – Maureen Sullivan
“To keep up with the demands of the new Common Core curriculum standards, teachers have made major changes to their lesson plans and the instructional materials they use. Principals aren’t getting much push-back from parents about the switch to Common Core. And the number of students reaching proficiency on the new multi-state tests was much lower than on the state tests they replaced. Those are some of the findings of a study released this month by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. Teachers at 151 elementary and middle schools in five states across the country were surveyed last spring as their students prepared to take the new standardized tests that are aligned to the Common Core standards. Nearly 1,500 teachers and 142 principals completed the survey. Teachers in three of the states (Maryland, Massachusetts and New Mexico) administered the PARCC test and in two of the states (Delaware and Nevada) they used the Smarter Balanced consortium test.”(more)