[CASL-L] Choosing Blindly and the Common Core

[IRENE KWIDZINSKI]

FYI


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Sarles Patricia  (18K500) <PSarles at schools.nyc.gov>
To: "aaslforum at ala.org" <aaslforum at ala.org>
Sent: Tue, April 17, 2012 8:20:22 AM
Subject: [aaslforum] SHARE: Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher 
Effectiveness, and the Common Core

This is hot off the presses. In New York, we are being cautioned not to jump the 
gun and purchase instructional materials, which would include books for the 
library, that claim to be aligned with the common core. It will probably take a 
while for quality materials to be developed as the Common Core is still too new.

"Not only is little information available on the effectiveness of most 
instructional materials, there is also very little systematic information on 
which materials are being used in which schools. In every state except one, it 
is impossible to find out what materials districts are currently using without 
contacting the districts one at a time to ask them. And the districts may not 
even know what materials they use if adoption decisions are made by individual 
schools. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which has the 
mission of collecting and disseminating information related to education in the 
U.S., collects no information on the usage of particular instructional 
materials.

"This scandalous lack of information will only become more troubling as two 
major policy initiatives—the Common Core standards and efforts to improve 
teacher effectiveness—are implemented. Publishers of instructional materials are 
lining up to declare the alignment of their materials with the Common Core 
standards using the most superficial of definitions. The Common Core standards 
will only have a chance of raising student achievement if they are implemented 
with high-quality materials, but there is currently no basis to measure the 
quality of materials. Efforts to improve teacher effectiveness will also fall 
short if they focus solely on the selection and retention of teachers and ignore 
the instructional tools that teachers are given to practice their craft."

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2012/0410_curriculum_chingos_whitehurst/0410_curriculum_chingos_whitehurst.pdf


____________________________________________
Patricia Sarles, MA, MLS
Jerome Parker Campus Library
100 Essex Drive
Staten Island, NY 10314
718-370-6900 x1322
psarles at schools.nyc.gov
http://www.scoop.it/t/help-with-the-common-core-state-standards/
http://paper.li/psarles/1332609247

The Internet may be the world's greatest library, but let's face it - all the 
books are scattered on the floor.  - D.C. Denison, Boston Globe

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. 
- Mitchell Kapor

To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief 
aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to 
discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from 
the fiction ... The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think 
intensively and to think critically. - Martin Luther King, Jr. The Purpose of 
Education
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