Resource packets and standards for high school common core

The state has posted resource packets and standards for high school common core (as well as younger grades) at this website.

Common Core resources are beginning to appear

Jonathan Lillie has started a website of links for Common Core Mathematics which he promises will grow. I look forward to finding more and sharing them here.

Transformation schools – come on in!

This is an open call to some of the schools who have received SIG grants in Georgia.

Albany High School
Avondale High School
Beach High School
Brooks County High School
Central High School
Douglas County
East Laurens High School
Greene County High School
Greenville High School
Groves High School
Irwin County High School
Kendrick High School
Lithia Springs Comprehensive High School
Paulding County High School
Randolph Clay High School
Therrell School of Law, Government and Public Policy
Towers High School
Webster County High Schools
Wilcox County High Schools

Step on in here. Let’s stay anonymous – but let’s talk about how the process is working for you.

Big Sister is watching you

We are rolling out new standards. They will be doing professional development via the internet – and taking names of those participating.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Today on http://www.gpb.org/education/common-core they will tell us the plan for rolling out Common Core in high school. It has only been 4 years since we turned the world upside down the LAST time with Georgia Standards, but let’s do it again.

Everyone knows 4 years is enough time to create a new plan and dismantle it.

Theoretically, Common Core shares 80% of the GPS standards, so it won’t be a major overhaul (right).

The only positive note: with 45 other states on board, there should be some decent resources.

Six months later

It has been six months since I posted. We are still working on turning this school around and creating something completely different from what existed.

I see the same traps catching us.

They want us to create rigor where little existed and they are fussing at the teachers because of the failure rate. Yes, we all want the students to pass but we want them to pass with the knowledge they need to succeed.

There is little support from administrators when we try to discipline the students.

The communication for these new programs is minimal.

Haves and Have Nots

Is it possible to create a school within a school, a magnet or IB school within the same campus as a regular high school, and not create a community stratified into the haves and the have nots?

They are talking about doing that for our school as a means of improving the school. They want to create a magnet school that would feed something in the community as a way, among other goals, of changing us from a bedroom community feeding Atlanta’s jobs into a community that is more self sufficient.

When they presented the dream to us in a meeting one teacher made the comment that the school will have to work incredibly hard to keep it from being the haves and the have nots. And he is correct.

The students think now that this school or that school succeeds because the people who live there are rich – not that the students work or that the parents and teachers have expectations, but that the students are rich. I can see them believing that this student or that one – who have worked and been accepted into the magnet program – only got that because they are lucky.

I would love to read about or talk with someone about how you bridge that gap and make the entire process something that benefits everyone, whether they are in the program or not.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

I wonder

I wonder if we will learn what we are teaching next year within the next month?

I wonder if we will get to teach the same subject again? (I have only repeated one course in four years – and you are better the second time.)

I wonder how big the classes will be.

I wonder if they will finally wise up and put all math on year long.

I wonder how the transition will affect us.

Taming the paper monster

I am at that point of the year where I do not want to think about the next 35 days but next year. I am rethinking how I organize paper – as it takes over my space and my time.

Turn papers in: by class turn thenm into an in/out tray for that class (near the door). Papers are moved from the trays to a plastic folder, graded, recorded and either returned or filed.

Daily work and projects: are filed by class and by unit in crates in the back of the room.

I think I need to add a place where I put daily work with the names of the missing on it. (Like, Monday Davey and Sam are out, put their names on the days work and file it for them.) I currently do this only for tests (filed in the attendance book by class).

In addition, each class has a crate and each student a hanging folder and manilla folder where they can keep things.

Low achieving schools and unmotivated students

We know that education and certain “certificates” (diplomas, etc.) make it easier to find employment,

We know that if it perceived to be a diploma mill, if it is perceived that the certificate is given to you rather than you earned it, then the certificate is worthless. This is why “social promotion” has fallen away.

Now, if you have a school where the students rely on recovery in order to pass, how do make learning – and retaining – the information a goal?