Common Core News

Utah Education Officials Call For Dismissal Of Common Core Lawsuit. The AP (10/15) reports that Utah state education officials have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit calling for the withdrawal of the state from the Common Core Standards. The lawsuit alleges that the “Utah State Board of Education illegally took a backdoor approach to adopting the education standards,” but state officials “counter that they followed the rules for adopting the” standards. The state says that “Common Core opponents sued over the issue too quickly rather than taking it up with the board first.” Districts Struggle To Gauge Value Of Common Core Materials. US News & World Report (10/14) reports that according to a new Center for American Progress study, Common Core states “have been purchasing new textbooks and other instructional materials to better align their curriculum with the new academic benchmarks.” However, there seems to be little knowledge of which ones are of the greatest quality. The study found that “there is little relationship between the cost and quality of curriculum materials” and that “higher-quality products tend to cost less.” Study: PARCC Not Better Gauge Of College Readiness Than MCAS. The Boston Globe (10/15, Fox) reports that according to a new study commissioned by the state of Massachusetts, the PARCC “is no better at predicting [college] performance than the state’s longstanding assessment,” the MCAS. The globe reports that the study is “sure to fuel the debate as the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education votes next month whether to dump the MCAS and replace it with the PARCC ”