‘On the Road’ with the Common Core
Posted on | February 21, 2014 | Comments Off on ‘On the Road’ with the Common Core
I’m headed out on what I am calling the Common Core Road Trip, to see what schools in California are doing with the prescription to teach to “fewer and deeper” standards. Over the next weeks and months, I’ll be traveling the state, and telling the stories of how the 30,000-foot glossy promises of increased student engagement and substantive learning look at ground level.
As reported earlier, I am following the efforts of the Associated Pomona Teachers and the Pomona Unified School District to use interactions about the Common Core as a way to hit the reset button in labor-management relations. More about them later.
This week, my first stop was in Charter Oak, a 5,700-student unified school district in Covina, where Jeanine Robertson taught for 31 years and was the teacher union president before becoming a principal and then assistant superintendent for instruction.
On Thursday, She and I visited three Charter Oak schools, saw students working on the new standards, and talked to them, their teachers, and school administrators about what it takes to transfer from a world driven by “factoids” to one that asks students to explain why and how they took a particular pathway to solving math problem or to understanding a story or text.
Much more will follow here and in a new space that will be opening in a few weeks.
Tags: Charter Oak Unified School District > Jeanine Robertson > Mike Hendricks