A group of Milwaukee teachers and principals will be among the first in the nation to train on how to adjust their lessons in order to align with the new Common Core State Standards, thanks to the GE Foundation.
The educators will attend the Standards Immersion Institute May 10-11 in New York City which is hosted by the co-authors of the standards in math, English Language and Arts/Literacy.
The goal is for the Milwaukee educators to return and teach their colleagues about the changes. The standards are scheduled to go into effect in Wisconsin at the beginning of the 2013 school year.
Milwaukee’s participation in the Institute is funded through a Common Core implementation grant from the GE Foundation.
“We appreciate the GE Foundation for providing the opportunity for the teachers and principals of Milwaukee Public Schools to benefit from training on improved math, science and literacy standards,” said Gregory Thornton, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. “We believe that Common Core Standards are a key component to cultivate a highly educated workforce.”
The Milwaukee teachers and principals will learn shifts in English Language Arts/Literacy that will call on more reading and writing grounded in evidence from text as well as regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary. In math, there will be a shift to thinking about the subject across grades and a link to major topics within grades. Teachers will also focus on helping students pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and application with equal intensity.
“GE knows that training and collaboration are keys to success in business and applying this model to Common Core implementation will work,” said Robert Corcoran, vice president GE Corporate Citizenship and president and chair of GE Foundation. “Our efforts are aimed at helping local teachers succeed at teaching students under the rigorous Common Core State Standards and this work in Milwaukee is a big step in this direction.”
The Common Core replaces a fragmented landscape of education standards that varied widely in quality and rigor from one state to the next. Wisconsin decided to join the Common Core State Standards, along with almost all the other states in the country, in order to create a much more focused set of knowledge and skills that matter most for success in college and careers. The new Standards provide a year-by-year description of what students should master in grades K–12.
The Milwaukee area teachers and principals attending the institute include: Diana Alvarez, Allen Field School; Laura Biesterveld, Honey Creek; Amy Bratel, Allen-Field, Thresessa Childs, Dr. Benjamin Carson Academy of Science, Gitanjali Chawla, principal, Honey Creek School; Lisa Gardiner, Milwaukee Sign Language School, Gail Gray, Dr. Ben Carson Academy of Science, Sarah Halverson, Milwaukee Sign Language School, Jean Lukitsch, Allen-Field, Anthony McDaniels, Carson Academy of Science, Marybell Nieves-Harris, Allen-Field, Brad Nuss, Milwaukee Sign Language School, Taimi Parey, Milwaukee Sign Language School, Tamira Rasco, Carson Academy of Science, and Melannie Trudeau, Honey Creek School.
