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81-437: The purposes of the standards include; Overall, the guidelines are intended to; Curricula based on the standards may cover fewer topics, but will go more deeply into specific topics, possibly using a case-study method and emphasizing critical thinking and primary investigation. Possible approaches to implementing the standards may even include replacing traditionally isolated high school courses such as biology and chemistry with

162-462: A career, based on a battery of assessments, went up from 34 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2013. According to Sarah Butrymowicz from The Atlantic , Kentucky's experience over the past three school years suggests it will be a slow and potentially frustrating road ahead for the other states that are using the Common Core. Test scores are still dismal, and state officials have expressed concern that

243-411: A case-study approach that uses a more holistic method of teaching science to consider both (or more) topics within a single classroom structure. Many education supply companies have already started offering NGSS-aligned products and resources to help teachers implement these new principles. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are based on the "Framework K–12 Science Education" that was created by

324-637: A common, universal assessment based on the Common Core State Standards, other states are choosing to work independently or through these two consortiums to develop the assessment. Florida Governor Rick Scott directed his state education board to withdraw from PARCC. Georgia withdrew from the consortium test in July 2013 in order to develop its own. Michigan decided not to participate in Smarter Balanced testing. Oklahoma tentatively withdrew from

405-498: A copyright notice, except when a state or territory has adopted the standards "in whole". When the CCSS was originally published, there was no intention to publish a common set of standards for English language proficiency development (ELPD). Instead, it was indicated that the ELPD standards would be left to individual states. However, the need for more guidance quickly became apparent, and led to

486-448: A major change in the way U.S. schools teach mathematics. Rather than a fragmented system in which content is "a mile wide and an inch deep," the new common standards offer the kind of mathematics instruction we see in the top-achieving nations, where students learn to master a few topics each year before moving on to more advanced mathematics. It is my opinion that [a state] will best position its students for success by remaining committed to

567-399: A mile-wide, inch deep curriculum, the standards ask math teachers to significantly narrow and deepen the way time and energy are spent in the classroom. This means focusing deeply on the major work of each grade as follows: This focus will help students gain strong foundations, including a solid understanding of concepts, a high degree of procedural skill and fluency, and the ability to apply

648-422: A position in which they can compete in a global economy. Work groups composed of representatives from higher education, K-12 education, teachers, and researchers drafted the Common Core State Standards. The work groups consulted educators, administrators, community and parent organizations, higher education representatives, the business community, researchers, civil rights groups, and states for feedback on each of

729-666: A public letter to the incoming Biden administration urging an immediate focus on education equity in order to address ongoing issues impacting the US education system . In 2021, the company announced a proposal for version 3.0 of Open Badges, bringing together the company's work across the World Wide Web Consortium and Decentralized Identity communities, the company released the Open Skills Management Toolkit in partnership with Western Governors University, and

810-482: A tremendous amount of money, and pushes out the things kids love about school, like art and music". As Common Core is implemented in New York, the new tests have been criticized. Some parents have said that the new assessments are too difficult and are causing too much stress, leading to an "opt-out movement" in which parents refuse to let their children take the tests. Former governor Jeb Bush has said of opponents of

891-435: Is done in other countries), or whether the curriculum should be separated out into separate year-long algebra and geometry courses (as has been the tradition in most U.S. states). An appendix to the standards describes four possible pathways for covering high school content (two traditional and two integrated), but states are free to organize the content any way they want. The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics shifted

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972-579: Is the Crosscutting Concepts , which are thinking tools and ideas that span disciplines and are used to bring disciplinary ideas together to explain a phenomenon or to design a solution to a problem. The NGSS give equal emphasis to engineering design and to scientific inquiry. In addition, they are aligned with the Common Core State Standards by grade and level of difficulty. The standards describe "performance expectations" for students in

1053-540: The Brookings Institution called into question whether the standards will have any effect, and said that they "have done little to equalize academic achievement within states". In response to the standards, the libertarian Cato Institute claimed that "it is not the least bit paranoid to say the federal government wants a national curriculum." According to a study published by the Pioneer Institute , although

1134-692: The California Community Colleges System , Georgia Department of Education , and SURFnet . The success of the company's Badgr product led to Founder Wayne Skipper being interviewed broadly in the education community, as well as Badgr's inclusion in the European Commission Joint Research Centre 's 2017 "Blockchain in Education" report. That same year, the company offered digital badges to commemorate The Great American Eclipse , and another product featuring

1215-734: The District of Columbia joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative; Alabama , Oklahoma , Texas , Virginia , Alaska , Nebraska , Indiana and South Carolina did not. Minnesota adopted the English Language Arts standards but not the Mathematics standards. Following pushback and reductions in financial support, the project lost momentum and at least 12 states introducing legislation to prohibit implementation. Eventually, multiple states that initially adopted

1296-531: The National Education Association , the Common Core State Standards are supported by 76% of its teacher members. Research from the Fordham Institute confirmed that many teachers support Common Core, but also found that the use of multiple methods to teach a single subject negatively impacted students' and parents' perceptions of these standards. The Heritage Foundation argued in 2010 that

1377-562: The Wayback Machine and took over development of GlassLab Games, which included the educational variants of several popular video games including Civilization and SimCity . GlassLab Games was shut down at the end of 2018, and Concentric Sky worked to release many of the games open source. In 2017, the company became a founding member of the IEEE Industry Consortium for Learning Engineering, and announced partnerships with

1458-531: The workforce . In the 1990s, a movement began in the U.S. to establish national educational standards for students across the country. In late 2008, the NGA convened a group to work on developing the standards. This team included David Coleman , William McCallum of the University of Arizona , Phil Daro, Douglas Clements and Student Achievement Partners founders Jason Zimba and Susan Pimentel to write standards in

1539-559: The ACT college readiness assessment, reported that there is a disconnect between what is emphasized in the Common Core and what is deemed important for college readiness by some college instructors. ACT has been a proponent of the Common Core Standards, and Chief Executive Officer Martin Roorda stated that "ACT's findings should not be interpreted as a rebuke of the Common Core." Kentucky was

1620-411: The Common Core Standards decided to repeal or replace them including Indiana, Arizona , Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Florida also abandoned the standard. New York State would eventually replace their version of the Common Core Standards with The Next Generation Learning Standards. Standards were released for mathematics and English language arts on June 2, 2010, with a majority of states adopting

1701-531: The Common Core State Standards ... or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States." Other content areas adopted a national approach to learning standards, such as the Next Generation Science Standards , released in April 2012 and were subsequently adopted by many states. They are not directly related to the Common Core standards, but their content can be cross-connected to

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1782-486: The Common Core State Standards and focusing their efforts on the implementation of the standards and aligned assessments. The standards require certain critical content for all students, including: classic myths and stories from around the world, America's Founding Documents, foundational American literature, and Shakespeare. In May 2013, the National Catholic Educational Association noted that

1863-453: The Common Core standards have never been field-tested and that no one knows whether they will improve education. Nicholas Tampio, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fordham University , said that the standards emphasize rote learning and uniformity over creativity. Michigan State University 's Distinguished Professor William Schmidt wrote: In my view, the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM) unquestionably represent

1944-613: The Common Core's focus on national standards would do little to fix deeply ingrained problems and incentive structures within the education system. Marion Brady, a teacher, and Patrick Murray, an elected member of the school governing board in Bradford , Maine , wrote that Common Core drains initiative from teachers and enforces a "one-size-fits-all" curriculum that ignores cultural differences among classrooms and students. Diane Ravitch , former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and education historian, wrote in her book Reign of Error that

2025-659: The Earth. Specifically, 'evolution' would be called 'biological diversity,' the specific age of the Earth would be changed to 'geologic history,' and a 'rise in global temperatures' would be changed to 'temperature fluctuations.'" Following significant protests by the New Mexico Academy of Science, New Mexicans for Science and Reason , the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Engineering as well as scientists, educators, and faith leaders,

2106-636: The NGSS, it is through the integration of content and practice "that science begins to make sense and allows students to apply the material." Over 40 states have shown interest in the standards, and as of March 2023, 20 states, along with the District of Columbia (D.C.), have adopted the standards: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. These represent over 36% of

2187-905: The National Research Council. They have three dimensions that are integrated in instruction at all levels. The first dimension is the Disciplinary Core Ideas (the DCIs), which consists of content and concepts specific to four disciplines: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, and Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science. The second dimension is the Science and Engineering Practices (the SEPs), which describe how scientists, engineers, and science students engage in their work of making sense of real-world phenomena and designing solutions to real-world problems. The specific elements of

2268-583: The Next Generations Science Standards from conservatives due to the inclusion of anthropogenic climate change and evolution . For example, the New Mexico Public Education Department initially attempted to make changes and deletions in the standards prior to adopting them. According to Skeptical Inquirer , the "proposed changes would have deleted key terms and concepts such as evolution and the 4.6-billion-year age of

2349-741: The Top. Development of the Common Core Standards was funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , Pearson Publishing Company , the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation , and others. The Every Student Succeeds Act , passed in December 2015, replaced No Child Left Behind Act , and prohibited the Department of Education from attempting to "influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of

2430-495: The areas of English language arts and mathematics. Announced on June 1, 2009, the initiative's stated purpose was to "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them". Additionally, "The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers", which should place American students in

2511-399: The areas of science and engineering. They define what students must be able to do in order to show competency. An important facet of the standards is that learning of content is integrated with doing the practices of scientists and engineers. This is a change from traditional teaching, which typically either dealt with these topics separately or did not attempt to teach practices. According to

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2592-724: The company a development partner. In 2011, the company partnered with the United Nations to develop a data visualization app to support the UN's annual reports. That same year, the company was named "the only App Developer officially endorsed by Mashable ." In 2012, the company designed and built an iPad version of the Encyclopædia Britannica . The app received widespread recognition, including an Appy Award . In 2013, products featuring Concentric Sky's work for partner Cengage Learning won 2 Codie awards . That same year,

2673-635: The company announced several new partnerships including Blackboard , Postman, and Open eLMS. During 2021, the company's work was featured by the American Institutes for Research , Futuro Health, and numerous other organizations around the world. In early 2022, the company announced partnerships with the National Student Clearinghouse , and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). In April 2022,

2754-459: The company launched a series of tools in partnership with the California Community Colleges System designed to help prospective community college students and their families identify regional educational programs and employment opportunities, and company founder Wayne Skipper was invited to speak at SXSW EDU on the topic of “Open Standards & the Quantification of Learning." During 2019,

2835-464: The company launched the Badgr project with partner edX . The use of Badgr grew rapidly, and by early 2018 the product had grown to serve nearly 10,000 organizations around the world. In 2016, the company announced a broad partnership with Collective Shift focused on advancements in education technology and workforce readiness. Under this partnership, the company developed LRNG Archived 17 July 2017 at

2916-712: The company was acquired by Instructure . Named as one of Oregon's Top Workplaces of 2021 by The Oregonian , Concentric Sky is known for its creative company culture. In 2012, the company dubbed its local metro region the Silicon Shire , and hosts Shire-themed events to promote the region including the annual Shire for the River fundraiser in partnership with the McKenzie River Trust. In 2013, members of Concentric Sky launched an award-winning technology design team known as Light At Play . In 2015, this team developed

2997-471: The company's EdRec initiative was named a winner of the US Dept of Education Reimagining Higher Education Ecosystem Challenge for its blockchain-based approach to digital transcripts , and the company's work was featured in the book "The Interconnected Individual.” In 2019, SURFnet announced a plan for The Netherlands to adopt a national digital credential strategy based on the company's Badgr platform,

3078-541: The company's work for partner Cengage Learning won a Codie award . In 2018, the company expanded the digital badges ecosystem by releasing an open technology standard called Open Pathways , and by creating a program to award digital badges to learning content aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards . That same year, Mozilla announced the retirement of the Mozilla Backpack and

3159-625: The company's work resulted in a US patent for usability improvements to electronic medical records . In 2014, the company joined the Open Badges movement and launched the Oregon Badge Alliance with partners including Oregon State University . Later that year, the company released an open source Android viewer app for Khan Academy content. In 2015, the company led the development of Open Badges 2.0 in partnership with MacArthur Foundation spin off, Collective Shift. That same year,

3240-550: The company's work was featured by Digital Promise , EdSurge , Educause , IBM , The Inter-American Development Bank , and the Technology Association of Oregon. In 2020, Microsoft announced the integration of the company's Badgr product into Microsoft Teams , the company co-founded the Open Skills Network with partners including Western Governors University and Walmart , the company's Badgr product

3321-535: The conclusion of each school grade . The initiative was sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers . The initiative also sought to provide states and schools with articulated expectations around the skills students graduating from high school needed in order to be prepared to enter credit-bearing courses at two- or four-year college programs or to enter

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3402-612: The consortium test in July 2013 due to the technical challenges of online assessment. Utah withdrew from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in August 2012. The Common Core State Standards have drawn both support and criticism from politicians, analysts, and commentators. Teams of academics and educators from around the United States led the development of the standards, and additional validation teams approved

3483-497: The creation of several initiatives to provide resources to states and educators, including: The U.S. Department of Education has since funded two grants to develop the next generation of ELPD assessments, which must measure students’ proficiency against a set of common ELPD standards, which in turn correspond to the college/career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics. The new assessment system must also: 41 states and

3564-399: The curriculum, not taught as separate courses. Mathematical Modeling is a Standard for Mathematical Practice (see above ), and is meant to be integrated across the entire curriculum beginning in kindergarten. The modeling category does not have its own standards; instead, high school standards in other categories which are intended to be considered part of the modeling category are indicated in

3645-617: The department announced in October 2017 that it would adopt the standards in their entirety. Common Core State Standards The Common Core State Standards Initiative , also known as simply Common Core , was an American, multi-state educational initiative begun in 2010 with the goal of increasing consistency across state standards, or what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at

3726-465: The drafts. The standards are copyrighted by NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the CCSSO , which controls use of and licenses the standards. The NGA Center and CCSSO do this by offering a public license which is used by State Departments of Education. The license states that use of the standards must be "in support" of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. It also requires attribution and

3807-712: The federal government, neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states." Educational analysts from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute determined that the Common Core standards "are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states, the Common Core is superior in both math and reading." In a follow-up study, researchers found that while some states were committed to updating their standards, more resources were still needed to ensure adequate implementation of those standards, including adequate course material, capacity to deliver assessments, and accountability systems. According to

3888-413: The final standards. The teams drew on public feedback that was solicited throughout the process and that feedback was incorporated into the standards. The Common Core initiative only specifies what students should know at each grade level and describes the skills that they must acquire in order to achieve college or career readiness. Individual school districts are responsible for choosing curricula based on

3969-459: The first to implement the Common Core State Standards, and local school districts began offering new math and English curricula based on the standard in August 2010. In 2013, Time magazine reported that the high school graduation rate had increased from 80 percent in 2010 to 86 percent in 2013, test scores went up 2 percentage points in the second year of using the Common Core test, and the percentage of students considered to be ready for college or

4050-545: The five process standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the five strands of proficiency in the U.S. National Research Council 's Adding It Up report. These practices are to be taught in every grade from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Details of how these practices are to be connected to each grade level's mathematics content are left to local implementation of the Standards. The standards lay out

4131-482: The heart of its philosophy is, as far as we can see, that it is a waste of resources to 'over-educate' people," though the Common Core set only minimum—not maximum—standards. Mark Naison, Fordham University Professor, and co-founder of the Badass Teachers Association , raised a similar objection: "The liberal critique of Common Core is that this is a huge profit-making enterprise that costs school districts

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4212-486: The math they know to solve problems inside and outside the classroom. The impetus for assessment was not a function of the Common Core project, but to ensure states' continued compliance with the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind which required standards-aligned assessments in math and ELA in grades 3-8 and once again in high school. Two consortiums formed to create multi-state assessments, taking two different approaches. The final decision of which assessment to use

4293-665: The mathematical and English Language Arts standards within the Common Core . The stated goal of the English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects standards is to ensure that students are college and career ready in literacy no later than the end of high school. There are five key components to the standards for English and Language Arts: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Media and Technology. The essential components and breakdown of each of these key points within

4374-582: The mathematics content that should be learned at each grade level from kindergarten to Grade 8 (age 13–14), as well as the mathematics to be learned in high school. The standards do not dictate any particular pedagogy or what order topics should be taught within a particular grade level. Mathematical content is organized in a number of domains . At each grade level there are several standards for each domain, organized into clusters of related standards. In addition to detailed standards (of which there are 21 to 28 for each grade from kindergarten to eighth grade),

4455-446: The metaphor "cognitive decapitation" to describe the unfulfilling educational experience students are going through due to the subjects that have been excluded in their curriculum as a result of the Common Core. He notes cognitive decapitation is often experienced in urban schools of color, while white children have the privilege to continue engaging in a creative curriculum that involves the arts. In 2016, ACT, Inc. , administrators of

4536-498: The migration of its users to Badgr, the company announced a new suite of open source tools for edX, Badgr was selected as the native badging solution for the Canvas Learning Management System , the company announced a 4-year partnership with the community college system of Washington state , and products featuring the company's work for partner Cengage Learning won another 2 Codie awards . Later that year,

4617-488: The national debates. All Common Core testing will be done online. This is a bonanza for the tech industry and other vendors. Every school district must buy new computers, new teaching materials, and new bandwidth for the testing. At a time when school budgets have been cut in most states and many thousands of teachers have been laid off, school districts across the nation will spend billions to pay for Common Core testing. Los Angeles alone committed to spend $ 1 billion on iPads for

4698-486: The pace of improvement is not fast enough. Districts have also seen varying success in changing how teachers teach, something that was supposed to change under the new standards. Concentric Sky Concentric Sky is a software development company located in Eugene, Oregon . The company was founded in 2005 by Wayne Skipper, and grew to nearly 90 employees prior its sale to Instructure in April 2022. In 2015, Cale Bruckner

4779-496: The responsibility to adopt "college and career readiness" standards, which didn't have to be CC, but most states chose CC anyway. The 26 states involved in developing the NGSS, called Lead State Partners, were Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. When

4860-695: The science and engineering practices from the Framework are identified and described in Appendix F of the Next Generation Science Standards. These practices are asking questions and defining problems; developing and using models; planning and carrying out investigations; analyzing and interpreting data; using mathematics and computational thinking; constructing explanations and designing solutions; engaging in argument from evidence; and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. The third dimension

4941-430: The standards are a "set of high-quality academic expectations that all students should master by the end of each grade level" and are "not a national curriculum". Advancing one Catholic perspective, over one hundred college-level scholars signed a public letter criticizing the Common Core for diminishing the humanities in the educational curriculum: The "Common Core adopts a bottom-line, pragmatic approach to education and

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5022-484: The standards are as follows: The stated goal of the mathematics standards is to achieve greater focus and coherence in the curriculum. This is largely in response to the criticism that American mathematics curricula are "a mile wide and an inch deep". The mathematics standards include Standards for Mathematical Practice and Standards for Mathematical Content. The Standards mandate that eight principles of mathematical practice be taught: The practices are adapted from

5103-420: The standards do not specify which content is to be taught at each grade level, nor does the Common Core prescribe how a particular standard should be taught. Up to Grade 8, the curriculum is integrated ; students study four or five different mathematical domains every year. The standards do not dictate whether the curriculum should continue to be integrated in high school with study of several domains each year (as

5184-547: The standards in the subsequent months. States were given an incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform. To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and

5265-437: The standards present an overview of "critical areas" for each grade. There are six conceptual categories of content to be covered at the high school level: Some topics in each category are indicated only for students intending to take more advanced, optional courses such as calculus , advanced statistics, or discrete mathematics . Even if the traditional sequence is adopted, functions and modeling are to be integrated across

5346-483: The standards that while "criticisms and conspiracy theories are easy attention grabbers", he instead wanted to hear their solutions to the problems in American education. In 2014, Bobby Jindal wrote that "It has become fashionable in the news media to believe there is a right-wing conspiracy against Common Core." Diane Ravitch has also stated: The financial cost of implementing Common Core has barely been mentioned in

5427-441: The standards themselves are sound, their method of implementation has failed to deliver improvements in literacy, while numeracy has actually declined, due to the imposition of the mediocre curriculum sequences used in a number of mid-performing states, and the "progressive" teaching methods that are popular among Common Core developers. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said her state should not "relinquish control of education to

5508-513: The standards were released in April 2013, many states were expected to adopt them within 1–2 years. However, according to the New York Times , it will take several more years to actually develop curricula based on the new guidelines, to train teachers in implementing them, and to revise standardized tests. In addition, the pace of adoption is expected to be slower than was seen with the Common Core State Standards because, unlike Common Core, in which

5589-453: The standards with a star symbol. Each of the six high school categories includes a number of domains. For example, the "number and quantity" category contains four domains: the real number system ; quantities; the complex number system ; and vector and matrix quantities. The "vector and matrix quantities" domain is reserved for advanced students, as are some of the standards in "the complex number system". In high school (Grades 9 to 12),

5670-420: The standards. Textbooks bearing a Common Core label are not verified by any agency and may or may not represent the intent of the Common Core Standards. Some critics believe most current textbooks are not actually aligned to the Common Core, while others disagree. The mathematicians Edward Frenkel and Hung-Hsi Wu wrote in 2013 that the mathematical education in the United States was in "deep crisis", caused by

5751-414: The states had financial incentives to adopt, there are no similar incentives for the NGSS. Many education supply companies have started offering NGSS-aligned products and resources to help teachers adopt NGSS. In 2018, Achieve partnered with Concentric Sky to offer digital badges for high-quality learning resources aligned to the NGSS. News reports have suggested there will likely be resistance towards

5832-447: The students in U.S. Unlike the earlier roll-out of the Common Core (CC) mathematics and English language arts standards, states have no financial incentives from federal grants to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards. Previously, adoption of the CC standards was incentivized through states accepting federal grants during the 2009 TARP bailouts. Once states accepted the grant, they accepted

5913-482: The tests; the money is being taken from a bond issue approved by voters for construction and repair of school facilities. Meanwhile, the district has cut teachers of the arts, class size has increased, and necessary repairs are deferred because the money will be spent on iPads. The iPads will be obsolete in a year or two, and the Pearson content loaded onto the iPads has only a three-year license. Writer Jonathan Kozol uses

5994-525: The transfer of digital units of gold. In 2009, the company formed a partnership with Encyclopædia Britannica to launch a series of iOS apps for the K-12 education market. That same year, the company released the official iOS app for NASA 's Astronomy Picture of the Day and also developed the website for film maker Michael Moore 's Capitalism: A Love Story . In 2010, Concentric Sky Founder Wayne Skipper

6075-486: The way math was being taught in schools. Both agreed that math textbooks, which were widely adopted across the states, already create "mediocre de facto national standards". The texts, they said, were "often incomprehensible and irrelevant". The Common Core State Standards address these issues and "level the playing field" for students. They point out that adoption of the Common Core State Standards and how best to test students are two separate issues. In 2012, Tom Loveless of

6156-442: The way the United States teaches math in three core ways. They built on the pre-existing standards to emphasize the skills and knowledge students will not only need in college, but in their career and in life as well. The key shifts are: As an example, here is the description of one of the key shifts, a greater focus on fewer topics: The Common Core calls for greater focus in mathematics. Rather than racing to cover many topics in

6237-442: The work place." Though states could adopt other college- and career-ready standards and still be eligible, they were awarded extra points in their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by August 2, 2010. Forty-one states made the promise in their application. Virginia and Texas were two states that chose to write their own college and career-ready standards, and were subsequently eligible for Race to

6318-671: Was asked to submit expert testimony to the Federal Trade Commission regarding Google 's acquisition of Admob . That same year, the company partnered with the World Bank to develop a series of data visualization apps and partnered with National Geographic to design and build a series of official study apps for the National Geographic Bee . In 2010, the Internet Engineering Task Force voted to make

6399-648: Was determined by individual state education agencies. Both of these consortiums proposed computer-based exams that include fewer selected and constructed response test items, unlike most states' existing No Child Left Behind tests. As of October 2015, SBAC membership was reduced to 20 members: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, The Bureau of Indian Education, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. While some states are working together to create

6480-567: Was included as part of Learning and Employment Record pilots presented by Salesforce and Walmart to the United States Department of Commerce , the company launched a first-of-its-kind comprehensive learner record with the University of North Texas , and the company announced partnerships with The International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET), Credential Engine, and Emsi. In December 2020, Concentric Sky and partners including Instructure and Zoom wrote

6561-441: Was promoted to President of the company. Skipper continued to serve as CEO until the company's sale. Concentric Sky is the maker of Badgr and is a well-known contributor to the development of open technology standards focused on advancing equity outcomes for learners and workers. Concentric Sky grew steadily from its founding in 2005. In 2008, the company announced a partnership with GoldMoney to create an iPhone app to allow

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