The Core of the matter

With Common Core assessments less than two years away, states and districts are worried about the accountability systems that hinge on those tests, report Michele McNeil and Catherine Gewertz in Education Week. A number of policy groups are urging more flexibility in how states evaluate teachers, label schools, and enforce other high-stakes consequences during a likely messy transition. Sandy Kress, who worked on accountability issues in Texas for decades, points out that most states have reworked their standards and tests in recent years, but have done so with years of planning. "The questions are, what would a transitional accountability system look like? Are there pathways that could allow us to compare apples to apples in the old and new tests? Can we get the test-makers of the old tests and new tests to sit down and talk about that?" State superintendents are calling on the U.S. Department of Education to give leeway on accountability, testing, and teacher evaluations in the next two years -- on top of the flexibility that 37 states and the District of Columbia have in the form of waivers from NCLB. They also want a delay in use of test scores for teacher evaluations, something that could pose a problem, since this practice is stipulated in many states' NCLB waivers as well as the winning plans of the 12 Race to the Top states.  More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.