District Administration - September 2011 - (Page 50)
The Road to Rigor
Raising the bar across the curriculum has become serious business.
By ron schachter
I
50 September 2011
Several Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools’ teachers undergo professional development training as part of the district’s focus on rigor, above and right.
n a major address on educatIonal polIcy last march, president Barack obama underscored his priorities for the pending reauthorization of the federal no child left Behind act. “We will end what has become a race to the bottom in our schools, and instead spur a race to the top by encouraging better standards and assessments,” he promised. “This is an area where we’re being outpaced by other nations. They are preparing their students not only for high school or college, but for a career. We are not.” While the president didn’t invoke the “r” word, his description of the problems of—and solutions to—student achievement in american schools hews closely to the definition of rigor that a growing number of schools, districts and states have begun to embrace over the past decade as they strengthen K12 curricula and assessments, provide the appropriate professional development, and find ways to pay for it—all with the ultimate goal of making high school graduates ready for college and the workplace in the 21st century.
District Administration
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