On Monday, the Business Roundtable released a report, Taking Action on Education and Workforce Preparedness, which outlines a plan for preparing the U.S. workforce to be competitive in the 21st century. The plan calls for full implementation of the Common Core State Standards, asserting that the CCSS are more rigorous than previous state standards, aligned with the expectations of higher education, and internationally benchmarked. Noting that “higher standards do not guarantee better student achievement,” the BRT provides a set of recommendations for successfully implementing the CCSS, including:
Create an Independent Organization to Review Curricula: Educators need an independent organization to create Consumer Reports-type reviews that assess how well curriculum and instructional materials are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Although there is currently a shortage of high-quality curricula aligned to the Common Core State Standards, eventually curricula of varying quality will be available from both nonprofit and for-profit sources. Independent review regarding the quality of these materials will assist educators with making well-informed, cost-effective decisions.
Learning List meets this need. The editorial reviews and alignment reports featured on LearningList.com provide objective, qualitative information about instructional resources as well as their alignment to the Common Core and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Learning List reviews both publisher-produced and open-source instructional materials. The goal of our service is to provide educators and parents with the information they need to select standards-aligned materials that will improve their students’ achievement.
Launched just two weeks ago, districts large and small, urban and rural are subscribing to Learning List’s instructional materials review service.