PSFA Daily News Digest

8 January 2013

www.nmpsfa.org 

Barbara Riley, Editor  ·  Email:  newsdigest@nmpsfa.org 

Raton/ Solar Power Eyed for Schools, Plan Could Mean More Education Money

By Bob Morris, Staff Writer

Raton Range

January 8, 2013

Cimarron school district officials are hoping to use the power of the sun to save some money that could be redirected directly toward education purposes.

Solar-panel arrays are being considered for placement at Cimarron schools and could help the district reduce its utilities expenses.

The Cimarron school district has had conversations with Taos-based Kit Carson Electric Cooperative - which provides power in Eagle Nest - about installing the panels at the school district's Eagle Nest Elementary/Middle School for "about a year," according to schools Superintendent James Gallegos.

A committee has been formed to further explore the possibility, with the idea of also having panels placed at the school campus in Cimarron, which houses all grades and the administration building.

Gallegos said the idea is to have enough solar panels to provide power to supply each of the buildings, with the potential of selling excess power back to the power company.

The committee has been reviewing what size of an array would be necessary to power each "physical plant," Gallegos said, adding that committee members are to visit Taos schools - a district that has some solar panels in place for its buildings - to get a better idea about what can be accomplished.

Gallegos said the district plans to speak with representatives of Springer Electric Cooperative, which supplies the Cimarron area with power. He said the district wants to ensure things are done within the bounds of the law and not to "create any hardships" by generating its own power through solar energy.

Gallegos said the primary benefit of the district generating its own energy is that it will save money on utilities and thus be able to direct more money toward other areas of the general budget.

• "Every dollar we save on utilities means a dollar more for the classroom," he said.

He added the Cimarron school board has been "cautiously optimistic" about the proposal.

• "Hopefully our school district can be leading in northeastern New Mexico" when it comes to renewable energy, Gallegos said.

The committee discussed some of its findings at the school board's December meeting and plans to present more information this month. Gallegos said he hopes progress can be made so that solar panel arrays can be "up and running" by the start of the 2013-2014 school year.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Deming/ PNM, MRAC Join to Provide Grant for Arts in the Classroom

By Terry Meyers

Deming Headlight

January 6, 2013

Deming elementary school students are gaining a prime peek into area arts and artists through a grant provided by PNM (Public Service Company of New Mexico) and its partnership with the Mimbres Region Arts Council.

Kindergartners through fifth graders in Luna and Grant counties get to experience the talents of artists and the children get to participate in individual art projects, as grant monies have provided this program to broaden children's interest in the arts.

• Each year PNM's foundation partners with the MRAC in Silver City and provides the "Fine Arts Friday" grant to fund youth outreach programs.
• Through the program the MRAC is able to bring artists to classrooms in Grant County and Luna County.

"PNM continues to contribute to nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to improving their communities," stats program coordinator Cari Lemon said. "What a better way to improve a community than to enrich the creative experiences of our students."

Lemon has been with the program for the passed two years. She was a elementary music teacher for 10 years and is currently employed at Western New Mexico University in Silver City. Lemon was born in El Paso, Texas but was raised in Silver City.

The program has an array of different types of artists including musicians, clay artists, dancers, visual artists and storytellers.

• In September of 2012, third graders at Memorial and Bataan Elementary Schools were able to experience clay art.
• In October, both Columbus and Chaparral Elementary Schools practiced puppet theater.
• Approximately 4,700 children throughout the two counties were able to experience arts of different forms.
• The program has serviced three school districts that include Silver City, Cobre (Bayard) and Deming for the past 14 years.

Local artists and out-of-the-area artists work within the program in order to stimulate and expand the imaginations of children.

For more information call MRAC at (575)538-2505 or go to the website at www.mimbresarts.org.

~~~~~~~~~~~

ABQ/ National Board Certification in Teaching: High Standards

By Hailey Heinz

ABQ Journal Staff Writer

January 8, 2013

Leah Dolan is a high-achieving woman, unaccustomed to failure. So when she found out she hadn't received her national board certification in teaching, the first-grade teacher was shocked and humbled.

"I've never failed at anything I've done," she said. "I've never not accomplished, and this is the first blow. That was really hard."

National board certification is a grueling process, which requires teachers to submit evidence that their teaching is excellent. That evidence includes:

• classroom video,
• samples of student work and essays explaining how they approach different aspects of their jobs, like teaching literacy.
• They also must take a test, which requires them to write an essay on the spot about how they would approach a given teaching scenario.

Dolan, who teaches at Corrales Elementary, allowed the Journal to follow her through the application process last year, as she attended small group meetings with other teachers, taped her lessons and compiled her essays.

Dolan, who is 32 and has been a teacher for eight years, spent at least 30 hours per month on her application, and found out shortly before Thanksgiving that she had missed the passing mark by 11 points. A score of 275 or higher is required to receive certified status.

The nationwide passing rate for the national board process is about 40 percent on the first attempt.

• Teachers then have two years to redo portions of their application.
• Teachers who receive the certification in New Mexico get an annual bump in pay of about $5,000, depending on how much money is allocated to education in a given year.

Nationwide, 4,980 teachers were certified this year, including those who successfully redid parts of their applications this year.

• In New Mexico, 93 teachers were certified this year, bringing the statewide total to 769.
• Of those 93, 52 were in Albuquerque Public Schools.

Dolan is already a Tier 3 teacher under New Mexico's three-tier licensure system, which means she earns about $50,000 per year. She will make a second attempt to get her certification, but she doesn't have to redo the entire process.

Teachers making a second try can bank their higher section scores and redo only the sections on which they faltered. Dolan will redo her literacy development section, which she said is painful because she has always considered teaching literacy one of her strengths.

She is now wrestling with the question of whether her literacy teaching is actually lacking, or whether she did a poor job explaining her practices in her essay.

• "Some people's explanation is that sometimes, not all the time, you do worst in the entry that you're strongest in because it's just second nature to you and you have a hard time expressing it," Dolan said.
• "I would love to hope that was the reason, because I honestly always thought I was a very strong literacy teacher. But my hopes are that now I'm really going to analyze how I instruct in literacy and find those holes and improve upon it."

Dolan said one of her key missteps may have been focusing too much on writing instead of broadening literacy to also include reading, speaking and listening. She said she looked at sample entries from those who taught older elementary students and therefore focused more on writing. She said she may have followed their example too closely, instead of thinking about what literacy means for first-graders.

Despite the massive time commitment and the disappointment, Dolan maintained the process has been the best professional training she has ever received, and said earning her master's degree was a "cakewalk" compared to the national boards process. She said it has forced her to think about her lessons and carefully consider whether they truly help students learn grade-level standards.

Dolan will retake two sections of the test, along with resubmitting her literacy entry. Each essay or test section costs $350, bringing Dolan's total cost to $1,050 for the second round. She paid $1,500 out of pocket on the first attempt, even after receiving a state subsidy and a scholarship.

She said friends from other professions have marveled at how much money she has to invest in pursuit of a raise.

But there is also a huge time commitment. Dolan has two young sons, 2 and 4, who saw less of their mother during the first application process.

"I looked through my camera - I had no pictures of the boys, no documentation of any of their lives from September to March," Dolan said.

She said when she sat down with her oldest son to tell him she had not been certified and was about to get busy again, he talked to her exactly the way she and her husband talk to him.

"He said, 'Well, are you going to try harder this time?'" Dolan said.

~~~~~~~~~~~

ABQ/ TEDxABQED: Education Innovation Includes Less Homework

By Hailey Heinz

ABQ Journal Staff Writer

January 8, 2013

Natalie Klein's philosophy sounds like every student's dream: She is a high school math teacher who thinks homework is overrated.

Klein, who teaches at Bosque School, has spent the past few years refining her classroom practices and researching the effectiveness of homework.

She will be one of about 20 speakers at TEDxABQED, scheduled on Friday.

The event is a locally organized "TED" talk, intended to bring together people with interesting ideas to share.

TED started in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: technology, entertainment and design, and its scope later expanded.

The theme for the January event is education, and speakers have expertise that includes teaching poetry, robotics, music, engineering, and media literacy.

Each speaker will have nine minutes. Other speakers include:

• charter founders Tony Monfiletto and Paul Stephenson,
• performance poet Carlos Contreras and
• musician and award-winning teacher Robb Janov.

Klein, in her third year of teaching, said she brings a different perspective to the work because she studied pure math in college. She did not become interested in education until she started tutoring other students.

"I was questioning homework a little. I have so many students who would end up struggling with it, not benefiting from it, or not even doing it," Klein said.

She said students who tried to do the work at home would get frustrated and wouldn't have the help or support they needed to get through difficult problems. So she started having them spend more time in class working on problems, while she moved around the classroom helping them and assessing where they were having difficulty. She said she still gives some homework, but thinks it's important for teachers to consider whether their techniques are working, instead of just teaching the same way they always have.

"I think we make it the default so often, without thinking about it," she said.

Klein said different levels of homework are appropriate for different classes. For her older students in pre-calculus and calculus, she sometimes gives optional practice problems. She said students are savvy enough to know if they need to practice a concept that might be on a test.

For younger students in her geometry class, Klein still requires some homework but tries to ensure students have time for in-class work and aren't left to struggle through lengthy problem sets at home. She said students like the strategy.

"Most of them said they realized practice is important, they want some practice, but feel when it's sent home, they don't have the support or time to really delve into it, and so I'm just trying to weave it into class," Klein said.

~~~~~~~~~~~

ABQ/ UNM College of Education Launches iTunes U Collection of Research Matters Videos

UNM College of Education Release

January 7, 2013

The College of Education has released a collection of videos in partnership with UNM's deployment of freely downloadable educational content through iTunes U. The Research Matters collection is a series of videos highlighting faculty research.

iTunes U provides access to more than 200,000 educational audio and video lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and podcasts-all available free from the iTunes Store.

Read more about the COE Research Matters Collection on iTunes U.

~~~~~~~~~~~

ABQ/ COLUMN: Bonds Help Without Tax-Rate Hike

By Winston Brooks [APS Superintendent]

ABQ Journal [monthly column]

Jan 8, 2013

It's amazing what can happen when a community invests in its schools.

We often talk about parent and community involvement and the difference it makes in the lives of students. When we come together with a singular focus on our kids, there's no limit to how far they can go.

Now, Albuquerque Public Schools - students, teachers, parents, grandparents, administrators and supporters - is asking to you consider the places where the learning happens every day.

On Feb. 5, less than a month from today, APS is asking voters to go to the polls. At stake is $368 million for capital improvements around the district. That translates into updated classrooms, renovated school buildings, computers, improved Internet access and much more.

This community has a history of supporting our schools; the last bond/mill levy election in 2010 got the support of more than two thirds of voters. For that, I thank you.

We're now at a critical juncture.

• Our buildings are getting old - the average age of an APS school is 45 years.
• Six of our high schools are more than 50 years old.

Though we have added 4 million square feet of new facility space in the past decade and renovated another 5 million, more work needs to be done.

These funds, if approved by voters, will provide for the construction of new classrooms and upgrade infrastructure in our older schools. About a third of it will go toward technology upgrades, a critical component for learning in the 21st century.

The good news? This can be done without an increase in tax rates.

You've seen what capital funding allowed us to accomplish at Del Norte High School. It has modern classrooms with state-of-the-art science and computer labs. A similar rebuilding project has begun at Sandia High. Eventually, we're going to rebuild or renovate Rio Grande, Valley, West Mesa and Manzano. A few new buildings already have been completed for schools on some of those campuses with bond money from previous elections, and that effort will continue.

The district continues to monitor crowded classrooms, too. We're going to build one efficient school that will serve kindergarten through eighth grade next to Atrisco Heritage Academy High School, creating an education corridor on the Southwest Mesa.

Early planning is under way for another education corridor near I-40 and 98th Street on property APS purchased more than a year ago. That complex is years away, but the new football stadium across the street is expected to be up and running by next fall. Taxpayer support makes the stadium and adjacent track and field possible.

Add in APS-authorized charter schools as well. We're working with six of our charters to find them permanent spaces and have put $14 million into that effort. Work has already begun on new buildings at Montessori of the Rio Grande and South Valley Academy. We have dedicated more than $34 million to charter design and construction over the next four years, more than any other authorizer.

The fact is construction for schools is a big part of the Albuquerque economy.

• Voters who approved these funds helped put people to work, and have created excellent, state-of-the-art facilities that help our students succeed.
• Just a few years ago, nearly 70 percent of all commercial construction permits in Albuquerque were issued to build and upgrade your schools.

Each successful election changes the face of the district and re-shapes the learning that goes on in our schools. Modern schools are a source of pride for students and staff, but it goes much deeper than that: New buildings and new technology give our kids the chance to academically compete at the very highest levels.

On behalf of the Albuquerque Public Schools, we appreciate your support.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Portland OR/ K-12 Leaders Discuss Deteriorating Public Schools as Top Concern

Portland Hearaldandnews.com Report

January 5, 2013

One part of the mission statement of the Vision for Education involved Klamath County educational institutions providing state-of-the-art learning environments in the years to come.

On that front, area schools have significant ground to cover. All of the K-12 leaders interviewed for this story cited deteriorating public school facilities as one of their top concerns going forward.

• "The biggest problem is the maintenance and safety of these buildings and the aesthetic," said Debbie Vought, executive director of Citizens for Safe Schools.
• "Kids internalize what they see is the conditions of our schools as evidence for our concern and care for them as individuals. I always heard kids comment on the dilapidated conditions at Klamath Union and about how they don't care about us and look how great the schools are in Bend."

The downtrodden buildings also present a poor first impression to visitors contemplating relocation to the area.

• "To me, that's one of the real drawbacks to the county, as far as growth," said Ken Goswick, a retired teacher who participated in the education vision. "If you're a new business person and take a look at our facilities, they just don't look good. That's what people see, that's the reality."

Many of the old buildings have single-pane windows and walls that lack insulation, which bumps up the utility bill during winter months, said Greg Thede, superintendent of the Klamath County School District.

• "There's not enough money within the general operating budget to take care of all the needs that we have," Thede said. "There's no question that buildings that look better and are more energy efficient are better for students and teachers and will be better for our community."

Thede has proposed a $29 million bond that will fund the construction of a new Henley Elementary School, which would be 60,000 square feet, include classrooms for 450 students, a computer lab, library and cafeteria/gym.

But the road to public approval could be tough, despite the Klamath Falls City School's successful passing of a $2.67 million levy in May.

• "You go for levies and bonds and, historically, Klamath County voters have had difficulty supporting those because of concerns about how their money is spent," said Tony Swan, principal of Fairview Elementary.

Thede recognizes the challenge ahead, and he plans a strong communication campaign to stress the import of the bond to voters.

Initiatives such as the county school district's are the only way the goals of Klamath Vision 2020 can be attained, Swan said.

"When you have the vision plan, those involved may not be able to enact change," Swan said. "It really comes down to the key players. It comes down to school districts and administrators to make them happen."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Washington DC/ Language and Learning on the Border [Columbus NM]

By Dr. Kareen Borders [Regional Teaching Ambassador Fellow from the Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Washington]

US Department of Education

January 7, 2013 

The RESPECT Project, a vision for transforming teaching and leading, is the result of hundreds of conversations with thousands of educators across the country. The Department of Education's Teaching Ambassador Fellows (TAFs) are continuing to talk with teachers throughout the country about the RESPECT Project and have reached out to other important stakeholders as well. This month the Fellows travelled to Arizona and New Mexico, including a visit by Kareen Borders, Toni Hull, Cindy Apalinski with a group of stakeholders in Columbus, N.M., (Deming Public School District).

"Unique", "determined", "challenging", "amazing place." These are just some of the phrases that parents, teachers, administrators and community members used to describe Columbus Elementary School in Columbus, N.M., during RESPECT discussions last month.

A border school located three miles from the Mexican border, Columbus faces unique challenges that include students who are predominantly living in poverty and who are English language learners. The remoteness of the school from students' homes also places extra pressure on educators and families.

Despite the American promise of equal opportunity, children of poverty and children of color often lack equal access to educational opportunities. Secretary Arne Duncan recently addressed the opportunity gap when he said,

• "In America, in 2012, children of color not only confront an achievement gap, they confront an opportunity gap that, too often, is unacceptably wide." Yet, we found Columbus to be overflowing with hope, happiness, academic rigor and a commitment to bicultural education.

For all of the real challenges to ensuring educational equity, we saw examples of culturally responsive education, rigorous classroom instruction, and structures that are reducing the opportunity gap.  Principal Hector Madrid affirmed that these children deserve the best education.

• "We do everything we can to make education possible for our students since they are American citizens," he said.

Classes that include dual language instruction, heritage studies, and rigorous core classes provide a holistic approach that includes recognition of the uniqueness of each student along with high expectations. Teachers plan together and present lessons in Spanish and English. During a math class visit, I observed first-graders working collaboratively on math problems, working one on one with the teacher and principal, and explaining their answers to each other.

When asked what she thought of her school, one first-grader responded, "I like it here. I get to learn and teach my friends. I'll show you." Those three simple sentences spoke volumes to me. She feels safe and nurtured in her school and quite simply likes it. She recognizes that she is learning and also has the opportunity to work collaboratively with her peers-a valuable skill. And, she holds the belief that her learning is valuable and can and should be communicated to others.

Being a part of two cultures, two languages, two countries, will give these children a unique grounding-one that definitely allows them to bring multiple perspectives to the table. One of the roundtable participants summed it up by saying,

• "There's a lot of respect in Columbus. We are bi-national and bi-cultural."

This recognition of the importance of multicultural perspectives is a step in the right direction of eliminating the opportunity gap.

As classes ended, I watched the children as they bounced out of class, skipped to the buses, laughed and chatted while swinging backpacks, to return home for the evening. In the morning, they will be welcomed by teachers, principals and an entire educational community committed to closing their opportunity gap.

View a video of Principal Hector Madrid's feedback about the RESPECT Project.

~~~~~~~~~~

San Diego CA/ Study Results: Inoculations Boost High School Graduation Rates

By Sarah D. Sparks

Education Week [Edweek.org]

January 7, 2013

Ensuring students get their booster shots can help protect not just later health, but their educational achievement, too, according to a new University of Missouri-Columbia study released at the American Economic Association's annual conference here this weekend.

"The Impact of Childhood Health on Adult Educational Attainment" tracks the effects of state vaccination requirements for common childhood diseases including measles, diphtheria, pertussis (also known as whooping cough, and tetanus, using data from the Centers for Disease Control's national disease surveillance system.

Dara N. Lee, an assistant economics professor at Missouri, analyzed both child mortality and health rates and years of schooling for students from the 1960s through the early 1980s, before and after states began to require proof of immunization for students before starting school.

• Without school requirements, she found, "parents tend to have their children vaccinated only during epidemic, by which time the children may already have been exposed to the disease."
• "It seems like these these mandatory vaccination laws were very effective in lowering morbidity for these childhood diseases; for example, there was almost a 50 percent drop for measles," Lee said.

By contrast, diseases that were not included in those initial vaccination laws, such as hepatitis and chicken pox, saw no significant decrease during the same time.

The most common childhood illnesses for which children are vaccinated, including measles, mumps, rubella, and pertussis, each keep a child out of school on average three weeks without any other complications. But complications are common in all of them; in measles, for example, one in 10 patients develop ear infections that can lead to permanent hearing loss.

Lee found that mandatory vaccination laws increased students' likelihood of graduating high school by 1.9 percentage points, and increased the average educational attainment by .12 years.

"The interesting thing is the effect on nonwhites is twice as large," Lee said, even after controlling for the effects of desegregating schools, which in many states was happening around the same time.

While considered a universal public health success in reducing child mortality, immunizations have faced a highly publicized backlash from a small-but-vocal minority who believe, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that they may cause autism.

"There's some significant implications from a policy perspective," Lee said. "Given the current controversy in the United States, in which a lot of people are arguing that vaccinations are bad for your children and can give them autism, we show that on average, it's not true and these kids are going to be getting more education than their counterparts."

~~~~~~~~~~~

New York NY/ McGraw-Hill to Debut Adaptive E-Book for Students

By Shalini Ramachandran

Wall Street Journal

January 7, 2013

Who ever said the best way to read a textbook was from the start to finish?

At the Consumer Electronics Show Monday night McGraw-Hill Education, a division of the McGraw-Hill Companies, will demonstrate its new adaptive e-book for students dubbed "SmartBook," which promises to "break the centuries-old tradition of books as linear experience."

Expanding upon student learning behavior collected from McGraw-Hill's existing suite of educational software, the SmartBook promises to adapt textbook material to suit the paces and grasp of individual learners.

• "This is about breaking a model that isn't really working" in education, said Brian Kibby, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, in an interview.

The SmartBook (not to be confused with the ill-fated mobile devices with the same name that were promoted a few years ago at CES) works like this:

• All readers essentially see the same textbook as they read for the first five minutes.
• But as a reader answers review questions placed throughout the chapter, different passages become highlighted to point the reader to where he or she should focus attention.

"It changes what is normally a static product to something that's individualized to the learner," said Ulrik Christensen, Chief Executive of Area9, the McGraw-Hill partner that developed the technology behind SmartBook.

The e-book will initially work on computers, as well as tablets using Apple and Android operating systems. It will have full functionality both online and offline.

The company pulls from an "enormous database" of student behavior models that drive the software to chart the most efficient path to learning a subject area, Mr. Christensen said.

• "Everything that you do is being tracked and it assesses you throughout" the questions and answers in each chapter, he said.

That could raise privacy concerns for some students.

• McGraw-Hill says it sometimes even shares their learning behavior data with instructors so they can further personalize courses.
• A McGraw-Hill spokeswoman said that "we take the protection of this data very seriously, and at all times we stay within our stringent privacy policy and make data security our first priority."

McGraw-Hill's Mr. Kibby predicted that in 36 months, "what we will see is that we won't be offering print textbooks" but "dynamic, adaptive, personalized learning environments" instead. The company plans to make the SmartBook product available for about 90 different course areas in the late spring.

The K-12 e-learning market in the U.S. is roughly $5.4 billion currently, a tiny portion of the money spent on traditional educational materials like textbooks.

While the market is growing, a number of companies including News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal, Pearson  and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. are vying for a piece of the pie. Meanwhile, states have been cutting back on spending on textbooks.

But McGraw-Hill executives say that the new adaptive e-books will offer better learning methods for a cheaper price than traditional textbooks. Mr. Kibby and Mr. Christensen said that they have seen a lot of demand for their learning products coming from individual students and parents rather than just educators and school officials.

• McGraw-Hill Education has yet to set a price for the SmartBook, though the company says it will be in line with standard e-books.
• The company's education software called LearnSmart currently costs $20 to 25 per semester.

In late November, McGraw-Hill Cos. agreed to sell the education business to private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC. The deal hasn't yet closed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Washington DC/ COLUMN: 5 Key Questions about the Common Core Standards

By Yong Zhao

Posted by Valerie Strauss [The Answer Sheet daily column]

January 8, 2013

The Common Core State Standards are inexorably coming to the 46 states and the District of Columbia, which have approved them. We've heard pros and cons of them in previous posts but here's a broader look at what they may mean for public education.

This was written by Yong Zhao, Presidential chair and Associate Dean for Global Education at the University of Oregon's College of Education, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Education. He is a Fellow of the International Academy for Education. Until December 2010, he was Director of both the Center for Teaching and Technology and the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State University, as well as the Executive Director of the Confucius Institute/Institute for Chinese Teacher Education.

If you are reading this, you know the world didn't end in 2012. But the world of American education may end in 2014, when the Common Core is scheduled to march into thousands of schools in the United States and end a "chaotic, fragmented, unequal, obsolete, and failing" system that has accompanied the rise of a nation with the largest economy, most scientific discoveries and technological inventions, best universities, and largest collection of Nobel laureates in the world today. In place will be a new world of education where all American children are exposed to the same content, delivered by highly standardized teachers, watched over by their equally standardized principals, and monitored by governments armed with sophisticated data tools.

This is the last year to ensure that happens: parents and school boards have to be convinced to remove any lasting resistance; teachers have to be fully trained so they can be turned on automatically when 2014 arrives; school leaders have to be readied so they can identify and incentivize good Common Core practices and exterminate bad ones; and data systems have to be developed so they can be deployed anytime. As American schools pour their resources into products, programs, and services to be Common Core ready in 2013, please keep in mind that the Common Core is a bet on the future of our children. While I have written about the Common Core many times before (e.g., Common Core vs. Common Sense, Common Core National Curriculum Standards), I wanted to ask all of us to ask again if the new world of education ushered in by the Common Core will be better than the old one scheduled to end in a year.

The Bet

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy. Common Core Mission Statement

Questioning the Bet

The Common Core is placing this bet on behalf of millions of children. But how good is it? I cannot answer the question with as much certainty as the Common Core proponents, but I invite them and you to consider the following questions.

• What makes one globally competitive?

With only a few exceptions (e.g., North Korea), geographical distance and political boundaries no longer divide the world in terms of economic activities. Virtually all economies are globally interconnected and interdependent. Employment opportunities are thus no longer isolated to specific locations. Jobs can be outsourced to distant places physically or performed by individuals remotely. In a world where jobs can be and have been moved around globally, anyone could potentially go after any job he or she desires. Whether she can be employed depends largely on two factors: qualifications and price. All things being equal, those who ask for a lower price for the same qualifications will get the job.

With over seven billion people living on Earth today, there is plenty of competition. But due to the vast economic disparities in the world, there exists tremendous differences in labor cost. The hourly compensation costs in manufacturing in 2010 varied from $1.90 in the Philippines to $57.53 in Norway, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2011 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). If a Norwegian were doing exactly the same job as a Filipino, it is very probable that his job would be gone soon. For the Norwegian to keep his job, he'd better be doing something that the Filipino is unable to do.

If all children are asked to master the same knowledge and skills, those whose time costs less will be much more competitive than those with higher costs. There are many poor and hungry people in the developing world willing to work for a fraction of what workers in developed countries need. Thus for those in developed countries such as the United States to be globally competitive, they must offer something qualitatively different, that is, something that cannot be obtained at a lower cost in developing countries. And that something is certainly not great test scores in a few subjects or the so-called basic skills, because those can be achieved in the developing countries. Yet the Common Core claims to be benchmarked with internationally high-performing countries, i.e., countries with high scores.

• Can you be ready for careers that do not exist yet?

Old jobs are being replaced by new ones rapidly as old industries disappear due to technological changes and existing jobs move around the globe. For example, existing firms in the U.S. lost on average over one million jobs annually in the period from 1977 to 2005, according to a report of the Kauffman Foundation, while an average of three million jobs were created annually by new firms (Kane, 2010). As a result, there is no sure way to predict what jobs our children will have to take in the future. As the head of PISA, Andrea Schleicher, recently said: "Schools have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don't know will arise" (Schleicher, 2010). If one does not know what careers are there in the future, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prescribe the knowledge and skills that will make today's students ready for them.

• Are the Common Core Standards relevant?

Jobs that require routine procedure skills and knowledge are increasingly automated or sent to places where such skills and knowledge are abundant with lower cost. As a result, as best selling author Daniel Pink observed, traditionally neglected talents, which he refers to as Right-brained directed skills, including design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning, will become more valuable (Pink, 2006). Economist Richard Florida noticed the increasing importance of creativity in the modern economy ten years ago in his best seller The Rise of the Creative Class (Florida, 2012). And economist Philip Auerswald convincingly proves the case for the need of entrepreneurs to bring the coming prosperity in his 2012 book (Auerswald, 2012). These are just antagonistic to the core subjects prescribed by the Common Core and tested by international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS, which are mostly left-brained cognitive skills.

• Does Common Core support global competence?

The world our children will live in is global, not local as before. Given the interconnectedness and interdependence of economies, the rise of global challenges such as climate change, and the ease of movement across national borders, one's birthplace no longer determines his or her future living space or whom he or she may be working for or with. Thus to be ready to live in this global world requires the knowledge and abilities to interact with people who are not born and raised in the same local community. But the Common Core does not include an element to prepare the future generations to live in this globalized world and interact with people from different cultures.

• What opportunities may we be missing?

Globalization and technological changes, while presenting tremendous challenges, bring vast opportunities. Globalization, for example, greatly expands the pool of potential customers for products and services. Niche talents that used to only be of interest to a small fraction of people may not be of much value locally, because the total population of a given community is small. In the globalized world, the potential customers could number seven billion.

Even a small fraction of the seven billion can be significant, and talents that may be of little value in a given location can be very valuable in another country. Globalization and technology today enable products and services to reach almost any corner of the world. But the Common Core, by forcing children to master the same curriculum, essentially discriminates against talents that are not consistent with their prescribed knowledge and skills. Students who are otherwise talented but do not do well in these chosen subjects are often sent to spend more time on the core subjects, retained for another grade, and deprived of the opportunity to develop their talents in other ways.

In summary, the efforts to develop common curricula nationally and internationally are simply working to perfect an outdated paradigm.

The outcomes are precisely the opposite of the talents we need for the new era.

• A well organized, tightly controlled, and well-executed education system can transmit the prescribed content much more effectively than one that is less organized, loosely monitored, and less unified.
• In the meantime, the latter allows for exceptions with more room for individual exploration and experimentation.

The question is what matters in the future: Do we want individuals who are good at taking tests, or individuals who are creative and entrepreneurial? I believe the answer is the latter.