Curriculum

The gaps in student achievement across Michigan don't just boil down to municipal boundaries, family finances and race, but instead relate more to differences in curriculum standards among classrooms and the level of knowledge a teacher has in their particular subject area, a House subcommittee investigating academic emergencies was told Thursday.

William Schmidt, a professor of statistics and co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center, said in his studies he's found that, while Michigan has some of the most rigorous curriculum standards in the world, how those are taught in classrooms around the state vary tremendously, with some schools teaching "watered down" versions of the courses.

Senate Bill 981 - one of the five bills completed in the late night legislative session before Christmas Break included the MASSP Algebra II language!

Sec. 1278a. (1) Except as otherwise provided in this section or section 1278b, beginning with pupils entering grade 8 in 2006, the board of a school district or board of directors of a public school academy shall not award a high school diploma to a pupil unless the pupil meets all of the following:

(a) Has successfully completed all of the following credit requirements of the Michigan merit standard before graduating from high school:

Thanks to Ken Willison, Englishville School for sharing this document!

NGA Center, CCSSO Release First Official Public Draft of the College- and Career-Readiness Standards

WASHINGTON—The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today released the first official public draft of the college- and career-readiness standards in English-language arts and mathematics as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a process being led by governors and chief state school officers in 51 states and territories. These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing, academic college courses and in workforce training programs.

See Jim's quote under Myth No. 5.

Myths undercut efforts to boost Michigan's high school standards

  (Click here to read)

AMBER ARELLANO

Want to know what is happening in the federal discussion about national curriculum standards. Here's the best insight you'll find. It's an email to me from Matt Gandal, VP, of Achieve.

Dear ADP State Leader:

As we have previously communicated to ADP Network states, Achieve is working with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Governors Association (NGA) on an important effort to create common core standards that can be adopted by states across the country. Over the last several weeks, this initiative has taken on a much more public profile, and leaders in ADP states have reached out to Achieve with a variety of questions about the process and our role in it. This update is designed to answer those questions.

Common Standards Development Process

Colleges are moderately effective at letting high school officials know what their students need to know to move up, but the colleges could do more, said an audit released Tuesday by Auditor General Thomas McTavish.

The performance audit of Developmental Education at Michigan

Public Community Colleges, for the period August 2005 through May 2007, showed that 26 percent of incoming freshmen during the audit period had to take developmental courses to come up to minimum college standards. And auditors said some of the reason for that was that only 14 of the 28 community colleges had provided high school officials with their college readiness standards.

The Detroit News
Thursday, April 16, 2009, Lansing
By Lou Glazer

Reversing Michigan's alarming population decline hopefully will rise to the top of the state's agenda. Particularly retaining and attracting recent college graduates. They are the key to restoring Michigan to high prosperity.

Why? Because employment growth and high wages are increasingly knowledge-based. Primarily in five broad sectors of the economy: information, finance and insurance, professional and technical services, health care and education. These industries, all of which have at least 30 percent of their employees with four-year degrees, are concentrating in the
regions of the country with the greatest concentrations of college educated adults.

Finally there’s a recognition program to honor those successful decisions made by your school improvement TEAM!

MASSP, in partnership with MEEMIC, want to honor TEAM decisions that have demonstrated school change. We hope to honor your TEAM for successful strategies that: demonstrate collaborative leadership, and professional learning communities, or, personalizing school environment, or, curriculum, instruction, and assessment, or, ideas to reduce educational costs.

MASSP is bringing a top expert on literacy and leadership to Michigan in November for three Regional Institutes.

Mel Riddile, the 2006 NASSP MetLife National High School Principal of the Year, has recently joined the National Association of Secondary School Principals staff and is coming to Michigan to share his expertise in tackling literacy issues at the secondary level from the perspective of the building principal.