As published at MyRecordJournal.com Wednesday December 5, 2012
By Russell Blair
Record-Journal staff
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225
Twitter:@RussellBlairRJ
WALLINGFORD - Change is already under way in the town’s schools to align curriculum with the new Common Core State Standards.
School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo said Tuesday night that 47 states have adopted the guidelines, which give a clearer picture of expectations for students, beginning in elementary school.
“This is not a Wallingford-unique activity,” he told a few dozen parents at a forum at Moses Y. Beach School. “It’s happening across the country.”
Carrie Laudadio, a curriculum coordinator for the district in English and language arts, said changes in those subjects include the introduction of more complex texts and an increased focus on nonfiction, instructional texts. Students will be expected to complete more research-oriented assignments, she said.
In math, changes will give students more time to master basic arithmetic skills. Some subjects, among them fractions and decimals, are being moved down into elementary school, but with more time to practice and less time repeating material that has already been learned, officials said, students should be able to keep up.
Ellen Cohn, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said states and local school districts have always had standards, but a unified approach will make it easier to compare instruction across the country.
“Forty-seven states have adopted the Common Core State Standards in an effort to have a universal approach that every child will know this and every child will be able to do this,” she said.
Coupled with the new standards comes the Smarter Balanced Assessment, a computer-based test that will be launched in the 2014-15 school year and replace the Connecticut Mastery Test and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test.
The new test will have many more questions, and being computer-based, can adapt to a child’s previous answer. If a student struggles with a question, the next one in the series will be made easier.
Educators hope the test results will be more meaningful, not just what students got right or wrong, but where they are in terms of progressing through the curriculum. There will also be opportunities to retake the test, Cohn said.
“The goal is to demonstrate a mastery,” she said. “The goal isn’t how you did on March 11, 2013.”
After lectures from from Menzo, Cohn and other administrators, parents broke out into groups and worked with teachers and principals to learn more about changes in classroom instruction for specific grades and subjects.
Chirag Parikh has two children in elementary school and attended the forum. He said he thinks education in the United States is falling behind other countries, and supported the changes, calling them “progressive.”
“It’s keeping in pace with all the things changing around us,” he said. “I’m curious to see how the changes affect the next generations.”
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