The Shift to Common Core in Massachusetts

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Our state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released information this week on its schedule to merge the Common Core curriculum with our own Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. The focus is on college-ready literacy and mathematics, with emphasis on informational/persuasive writing and content-area reading. Narrative writing takes a back seat to expository writing, I think. The actual frameworks are not yet out, but will be soon.

Here areĀ  a couple of slides from the state’s report, which shows that we are in a transition year next year and then quickly, we will be right into a Common Core-aligned curriculum. Many of us are wondering when our standardized test will reflect the shift, and it looks like a partial implementation of the new test will be next year, and then a full implementation the following year.
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As it turns out, I will be talking a bit about the Common Core shift on Thursday, when I co-present a session entitled Technology Across the Curriculum with two Western Massachusetts Writing Project colleagues (Tom and Tina) at a new conference entitled Technology in Education Partnership (TEP), where Alan November is the keynote speaker. (And can I say that this conference seems very vendor-driven, so I am not sure how it will be.) We’re happy to have an event like this in our part of the state, however.

Peace (in the core),
Kevin

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