Education Week - January 30, 2013 - 1

Education Week
VOL. 32, NO. 19 • JANUARY 30, 2013

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edweek.org:

BREAKING NEWS DAILY

Grad Rate
At Highest
Since 1970
Calculation Not the Same
As ‘Official’ NCLB Method

Stephen B. Thornton for Education Week

By Caralee Adams
& Sarah D. Sparks

Kathy Powers discusses the book Assassin with her 5th graders at Carl Stuart Middle School in Conway, Ark. She uses the historical
novel along with the nonfiction book Chasing Lincoln’s Killer and a Walt Whitman poem in a unit about the president’s assassination.

Teachers Differ Over Meeting Nonfiction Rule
By Catherine Gewertz
As the common core is brought to life in
classrooms this year, some English/language
arts teachers are finding themselves caught
in a swirl of debate about whether the new
standards require them to cut back on prized
pieces of the literary canon to make room for
nonfiction.
A recent spate of news reports has ignited a
new wave of anxiety about the Common Core
State Standards’ emphasis on “informational

text.” Prominent coverage has been given by
mainstream news organizations to a handful
of teachers’ complaints that they have had
to drop cherished works of literature from
their curricula. “Common Core Sparks War
of Words,” proclaimed a front-page headline
in The Washington Post. “Catcher in the Rye
Dropped From US School Curriculum,” said
one in London’s Telegraph.
Frustrated with what they consider distortions, the common core’s staunchest advocates
have tried to correct the record, arguing that

great works of fiction are a bulwark of the standards. In some states and districts, little or no
guidance is being offered on the issue for teachers, leaving them to grapple with achieving the
right balance of fiction and nonfiction on their
own. Even where guidance is offered, teachers
are carrying away varying messages, resulting
in some cases in bitter disagreements over who
is misinterpreting the standards.
The resulting landscape is pockmarked with
debates about how much the standards require
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PAGE 13 >

Skills Promoted
To Aid Learning
Amid Adversity
Seattle

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

With common standards in science set
to be finalized in March, states will soon
face the dilemma of embracing them as
their own or going their own way, raising
the question of how common the Next Generation Science Standards will ultimately
prove to be.
The 26 “lead state partners” helping to
develop the K-12 standards have agreed
to “give serious consideration” to adopting
them. Recent interviews with officials in a
number of those states, such as California,
Delaware, Kansas, and Maryland, reveal
a generally positive reaction to the second
and final public draft, issued this month for
comment.
Meanwhile, some other states that are
not lead partners are closely tracking the
process and even have assembled broad-

based teams to provide feedback along the
way. Officials in both Florida and Louisiana, for instance, say their states will seriously consider adoption.
In the end, the science document may
not reach the level of buy-in of the Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and mathematics, which have
been adopted by all but a handful of states.
But some observers predict the number of
states on board for common science standards could reach the mid-30s or higher.
Adoption could be complicated in certain
places, however, because of how the standards address evolution and climate change,
issues that are political flashpoints.
California may well be an early adopter
of the standards, which promote depth over
breadth in science instruction and call on
students to apply their learning through

PAGE 18 >

By Sarah D. Sparks

States Soon to Weigh Science Standards
By Erik W. Robelen

America’s high school graduation
rate has notably improved, according
to figures released last week by the
National Center for Education Statistics.
The “averaged freshman graduation rate” rose to 78.2 percent of public
school students receiving a diploma in
2010, up from 75.5 percent the year before. In 2006, the rate was 73.4 percent,
and in 2001, it was 71.7 percent.
The new report reflects the best performance in decades by high school
students. It is the highest graduation
rate since 1970, when the figure hit
78.7 percent.
Also improved was the dropout rate,
calculated as the proportion of students who drop out in any given year;
it fell from 14.6 percent in 1972 to 11
percent in 1992 to 3.4 percent for the
class of 2010.
Thirty-eight states showed a graduation-rate increase of 1 percentage point
or more in the most recent analysis.
Overall, 3.1 million students received

NOW TO BUSINESS: President Barack

Obama is sworn in, Congress is back, and
Washington ramps up. PAGES 19, 20, 21

Poverty, neglect, or family stress
can make it especially difficult for
young children to develop the selfdiscipline and habits of mind they
will need to succeed in the classroom
and beyond. Armed with research
and a commitment to the whole
child, Washington state has transformed the way its agencies work
together and in partnership with
researchers to address the effects of
early adversity on learning and to
help disadvantaged children build
resiliency and other so-called executive-function skills they need to learn
and grow.
In the process, officials hope to
create a national model for rapidly
translating new research in fields
like cognitive and neuroscience into
usable practice.
The Innovation by Design initiative,
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Education Week - January 30, 2013

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