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A Common Problem
Examining new standards for Oregon students

ARTICLE | JANUARY 9, 2014 - 12:00AM | BY AMY SCHNEIDER, EUGENE WEEKLY

20140109coverstory-02When Macey France’s second-grade son brought home his math homework, France couldn’t believe that he was already working with fractions. “The sad thing is, my eight-year-old doesn’t know what a fraction is yet,” she says, “and he’s reading it out loud, saying, ‘one and then a line and then a four,’ and I realized, oh my goodness, they’re asking for a quarter of something.”

France, chief operating officer of Parent Led Reform Oregon, is drawing attention to a set of new achievement standards that are coming to Oregon schools, including Lane County, as well as across the nation. Teachers around the state are modifying their classroom strategies to meet these new standards — sudden adjustments that parents are surprised to see. “People have compared it to the Affordable Care Act,” she says. “It hit, and it’s too much, too fast.”

Known as the Common Core State Standards, this set of benchmarks specifies the target knowledge and proficiency in math, reading and writing that children should attain in grades K-12. Along with the change in standards comes a change in testing. Starting in the 2014-15 school year, students will leave the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) testing behind and transition to the more rigorous and expensive Smarter Balanced assessments, designed to measure student progress in meeting the Common Core standards.

The National Institute for Direct Instruction has created a spreadsheet DI Materials Cost Worksheet  that will aid administrators and other decision makers in determining program material costs. Constructed as a Microsoft Excel document, simply enter the quantities for each title and component into the worksheet and the total estimated cost is automatically calcuated at the bottom of the sheet. NIFDI does not sell programs directly and recommends this worksheet as a tool for estimating only. Users need to verify actual pricing from the publisher or through their sales representative.

Need teacher materials? Now is the time to buy! McGraw-Hill Education is running a special on teacher kits now through December 16, 2013. Buy 2 teacher materials packages of your favorite SRA Direct Instruction programs and get 1 FREE! Call 800-344-7344 and mention promo code FALL2013ESSENTIALS.

K12 leaders highlight products that enhance learning in another record-breaking year for nominationsDA-funnix-logo 

EUGENE (December 1, 2013) McGraw-Hill's Reading Mastery Signature Edition, Funnix Beginning Reading and Funnix Beginning Math have been recognized for making a positive difference in education by K12 leaders who named it to District Administration magazine’s “Readers’ Choice Top 100 Product for 2013.”

The winners, selected by District Administration’s editors from a record 1,800-plus nominations, were products that received the highest number of nominations and best descriptions from K-12 leaders. The Readers’ Choice Top 100 has been announced online and in the December issue of District Administration.

Wikipedia-logo-en-big-2As most of you know, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia of over 30 million community-submitted articles detailing everything from historical events to pop culture celebrities to scientific theories. Now, Direct Instruction's very own Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann has joined the world of Wikipedia as an article in the popular internet resource! The National Institute for Direct Instruction wrote and submitted Zig's entry that was recently accepted for publication into Wikipedia - or as we now call it, "Zigipedia"! Check out Zig's entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Engelmann.

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