- The Common Core Standards have been adopted by 46 states and D.C. and will be in place by 2014. They will require that nonfiction texts represent 50% of elementary reading assignments and 70% by grade 12–much to the concern of many English teachers who must replace such classics as The Great Gatsby with such offerings as Recommended Levels of Insulation.
- The Common Core Standards designers have now released the minimum technology standards needed to give the Common Core assessments online. These include the ability to ‘lock down’ and temporarily disable features that present a security risk and requiring all devices to have at least 10″ screens.
- The Common Core assessments are estimated to take 7 hours in grades 3-5, 7-1/2 hours in grades 6-8, and 8-1/2 hours in grade 11. An extended version was considered but instead it was decided to expand the shorter one by about 30 minutes rather than have two versions.
- The two national teachers’ unions, the NEA and the AFT, have won $11 million to build an online warehouse of instructional tools for the Common Core Standards..
- The second public draft of the Next Generation of Science Standards, developed by Achieve, has now been released.
