Happy New Year Everyone!!
HB 2 Appropriates money for the expenses, grants, refunds, and distributions of the State Board of Education and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Effective Date: 8/28/2013
Section 2.050. To the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
2 For the purpose of receiving and expending grants, donations, contracts,
3 and payments from private, federal, and other governmental
4 agencies which may become available between sessions of the
5 General Assembly provided that the General Assembly shall be
6 notified of the source of any new funds and the purpose for which
7 they shall be expended, in writing, prior to the use of said funds,
8 and further provided that no funds shall be used to implement the
9 Common Core Standards
From Federal and Other Funds………………….........$10,000,000
I wonder if DESE disseminated any information to districts on HB2’s restriction on Common Core implementation? Are local school boards aware that their current practices may be in conflict with this legislation.
All of DESE’s math and science discretionary grants involve implementation of Common Core Standards and were not revised after passage of HB2. The deadline for these was September 18, 2013.
Page 6 of the K-6 Math Initiative (which is the same for the K-6 Science excepts it reads "National Educational Standards for Science" rather than Common Core, the ELL reads "Common Core")
C. Use of Funds
(3) Provide follow-up training throughout the year to the academy mathematics science teachers that shall: (a) Directly relate to the mathematics curriculum, and focus secondarily on pedagogy; (b) Enhance the ability of the teacher to understand and use the Missouri Mathematics Grade-Level Expectations and the Common Core State standards for mathematics to develop and/or revise appropriate curricula; (c) Train teachers to use curricula that are based on scientific research, aligned with the Missouri Mathematics Grade-Level Expectations and Common Core State Standards for mathematics, and are active learning-oriented, inquiry-based, differentiated to meet diverse student needs, and concept/content-based;
I was also interested in this part of HB2 because high quality PD, focused on content, really is essential to professional growth in teaching.
Section 2.115. To the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
2 For the Instructional Improvement Grants Program pursuant to Title II
3 Improving Teacher Quality
From Federal Funds……………………...........................$59,348,890
So I googled:
and I found the second document had been revised in Aug 2013. (The same month that HB2 had passed) I find no mention of Common Core with respect to Professional Development at all in the revised document, however ALL of the high school math PD currently taking place in my district is on Common Core.
This (again) leads me to believe that local school boards are not aware of the legislation.
Any confusion that may be caused by their re-labeling Common Core as Missouri Learning Standards can quickly be dispelled by following the content supports for teachers here: http://www.missourilearningstandards.com/teachers/ which lead straight back to CCSS.
