Today is a list of interesting sites, posts and opinions about the Common Core.
Common Core, Politics, and the Election
What are the opinions of Obama and Romney on the topic of education? Here’s some of the online conversations about the candidates for President.
- Obama and Romney Have Different Views on Education. From USA Today, comes this report on the different views of the Presidential Candidates.
- Romney: No Federal Support for Common Core. From EdWeek.org
- Education Nation: Starkly Different Visions from Obama and Romney From FirstRead on NBCNews. The following is a synopsis of that report.
- OBAMA: Preserve funding, “Race to the Top,” Common Core, Weakened NCLB, low-interest student loans for college, pushes for performance pay, teacher evaluations tied to student achievement, and support for charter schools.
- ROMNEY: Vouchers, report cards on districts for parents, grants to attract excellent teachers, less federal control through NCLB, less federal management, unknown view on Common Core, will stand up to teacher’s unions, shop around for best priced colleges, continue Pell Grants, private sector college loans,
Common Core Nonfiction Texts for October, Election or Voting, and Halloween
Recently, two new websites started that are of interest. 2ndGradeReading.NET and 3rdGradeReading.NET provide reviews of new children’s books, specifically focusing on Common Core text exemplars. Each children’s book review lists the Lexile score, and overall, the sites provide the required ratio of fiction to nonfiction texts. (If you teach 4th or 5th grades, sign up to be notified when 4thGradeReading.NET and 5thGradeReading.NET go live.) Read the reviews and then sign up for the newsletter for your grade level to receive three book reviews a week.
Recent Halloween Reviews
Recent Election or Politics Related Books for Kids
Marching with Aunt Susan: Susan B. Anthony and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage by Claire Rudolph Murphy (650L) 
Today on Election Day by Catherine Stier (900L) 
Heart on Fire: Susan B. Anthony Votes for President by Ann Malaspina (480L)
A History of Voting Rights, by Tamra Orr (1080L)
Author, blogger and writing teacher Darcy Pattison writes about publishing, fiction and the Common Core. Published in eight languages, Pattison has written how-to-write books, picture books for children, teacher resource books and middle grade novels.
