Tabula Rasa Publishing Services, Inc.

01/03/2021

THIS is why our kids are falling behind in math!

08/05/2020

It might be tempting in these times of shrinking state budgets to trim spending on education, but history teaches that the impact can be extensive. This study found that reductions in per-pupil spending not only reduce average performance on assessments and lower college-going rates, but lead to even wider scoring gaps between black and white students.

https://www.educationnext.org/costs-cutting-school-spending-lessons-from-great-recession/

Lessons from the Great Recession

07/14/2020

Online Penalty? Just what we need now, eh?

Switching from paper to online administration of high-stakes testing showed significant drops in students' scores, particularly among those from lower-income families and English-language learners. The performance gap did narrow after the first year, but definitely something that needs to be considered as we prepare for a new normal of learning.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/standardized-tests-students-face-online-penalty

Switching from paper to online standardized tests caused significant drops in students’ scores—and vulnerable students were hurt the worst.

07/02/2020

Excellent and well-researched paper from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (Univ of Wash): "Learning as We Go: Principles for Effective Assessment During the Covid-19 Pandemic"

The panel cautions that poor diagnostic tests and their misuse will do our students more harm than good. Highlights just how important qualified and experienced assessment development is. Tabula Rasa Publishing Services has just that experience, authoring the pilot and field test items for Smarter Balanced, along with thousands of quality high-stakes state and national assessments since.

Download the complete paper from our website here: https://tr-pub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/final_diagnostics_brief_2020.pdf.

06/29/2020

From NCTM - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics President on our roles in facilitating change in math teaching and learning:

https://www.nctm.org/News-and-Calendar/Messages-from-the-President/Archive/Trena-Wilkerson/Being-a-Catalyst-for-Change-in-Mathematics-Teaching-and-Learning/

What does it mean to be a catalyst for change? Many questions come to mind when considering being a catalyst for change in mathematics teaching and learning.

06/22/2020

Everybody duck! Looks like the pendulum (finally?) might be swinging back . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/21/it-looks-like-beginning-end-americas-obsession-with-student-standardized-tests/

Here are the trends.

06/11/2020

The National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics ) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics ) have published a joint document to provide guidance for mathematics teachers and leaders at all levels to make informed decisions for next steps due to COVID-19.

You can find it on our website here:https://tr-pub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/NCTM_NCSM_Moving_Forward.pdf

06/01/2020

Tabula Rasa Publishing Services is thrilled to announce a new strategic partnership with Beehive Editing. This partnership will allow us to provide our clients, for the first time, with additional development support in ELA and Science. Beehive Editing

https://tr-pub.com/2020/05/new-strategic-partnership-announcement/

Having been top educational publishers’ go-to source for expert Mathematics content development for over 15 years, Tabula Rasa Publishing Services is thrilled to announce a new strategic partnership with Beehive Editing. This partnership will allow us to provide our clients, for the first time, wi...

05/29/2020

In honor of its centennial year, NCTM is presenting webinars on 100 select dates between April and October. They can be attended live via Zoom, and they're also recorded and made available the next day.

Lots of great content there. Enjoy!

https://www.nctm.org/100-Days-of-Professional-Learning/

100 Days of Professional Learning

05/21/2020

Excellent insights into student performance from a white paper from our colleagues at NWEA:

"While it is difficult to speculate on what missing months of school may mean for student achievement, research on seasonal learning and summer learning loss can offer insights that help educators, policymakers, and families understand, plan for, and address some potential impacts of this extended pause in classroom instruction."

You can download the paper here: https://info.nwea.org/the_covid-19_slide_brf.html?utm_medium=advertising&utm_source=ascd-smartbrief&utm_campaign=brf-the-covid19-slide&utm_content=news1&utm_term=5-20-20

When students, educators, and administrators return to school after the COVID-19 closures, classrooms will be a changed landscape, one likely marked by larger equity gaps, substantial learning loss for many students, and continued economic turmoil for marginalized families.

05/19/2020

A good response the next time your kid/student asks, "Why do I even need to learn math?!" 🤔

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sianbeilock/2020/05/18/americas-math-anxiety-is-making-the-covid-19-crisis-worse/?ss=education

When people are afraid of numbers, they give up on trying to understand them.

05/12/2020

Cultivating Joy in Math > Keeping to Curriculum!

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/discovering-joyful-math-away-from-the-classroom/

Here are resources for students, parents and other learners

04/07/2020

Oooooh, number theory drama! Where's the popcorn?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00998-2?fbclid=IwAR1eiXk0BmEJD5zLjDlOdbyUTcN3YyK8J5FNJkjbBIhkI-WQEn65jQ87aTA

But some experts say author Shinichi Mochizuki failed to fix fatal flaw in solution of major arithmetic problem.

03/17/2020

🤣

Best. One. Yet.

02/15/2020

A map of the poetry of logic!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-map-of-mathematics-20200213/?fbclid=IwAR32Y_xUljT0hhnafxCfP42N0_ufu0dhxdSIc-XiAXRPf_O8Pwhou2vlElQ

Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.

10/31/2019

Math is art.

A photo survey of the blackboards of mathematicians.

07/19/2019

Tabula Rasa is 15 years old today- happy birthday to us! 🎂 🎈

06/26/2019

https://www.educationdive.com/news/florida-maybe-alabama-will-more-states-drop-common-core/557370/

While some state policymakers blame the standards for stagnant student performance, others continue to make revisions without dropping the Common Core completely.

02/01/2019

Good grief! But, like Sun-Tzu said, "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-ne-desantis-common-core-florida-20190131-story.html

Gov. Ron DeSantis says he'll sign executive order eliminating Common Core from Florida's public schools. The state first adopted the controversial standards — which spell out required language arts and math lessons — in 2010.

04/18/2018

Math is math? Shhhh, don't tell anyone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLfsE_a2a-c&feature=player_embedded

►SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLsyXqSBPNeml74UjSZh65Q?sub_confirmation=1

02/20/2017

Is the Common Core bringing a peaceful end to the "math wars"? Not so much.

https://www.nctm.org/News-and-Calendar/Messages-from-the-President/Archive/Matt-Larson/The-Elusive-Search-for-Balance/

In many ways it seems as though we live in a world that is out of balance—pushed to extremes—that has “lost the middle” in various ways. To move mathematics teaching and learning forward, we have to resist the urge to be pushed to extremes.

12/07/2016

Root cause? Clearly not enough students learning from Tabula Rasa-created materials!

Shimmer of good news, though, at the end of the article as the U.S. "has made more progress in closing the socioeconomic achievement gap than any other [Program for International Student Assessment] country.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pisa-scores_us_5845e67de4b028b32338e824

New international test results show that American scores have either stagnated or slipped.

06/24/2016

How to reconcile the mixed feelings that the math CCSS "set unrealistic expectations and will have long-term benefits"?

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2016/06/common-core_math_survey_parents_fordham.html

Elementary and middle school math teachers have mixed feelings on the Common Core State Standards, saying both that they set unrealistic expectations and will have long-term benefits, according to the results of a survey.

11/02/2015

The latest viral Common Core mathematics paper. And one of the first to actually list the standards. So first, let's compare the "child friendly" standards on the paper to the actual Common Core st...

08/10/2015

It's about time we started holding teachers accountable!

http://www.theonion.com/article/new-statewide-education-standards-require-teachers-51038

SPRINGFIELD, IL—In an effort to hold classroom instructors more accountable, the Illinois State Board of Education unveiled new statewide education standards Friday that require public school teachers to forever change the lives of at least 30 percent of their students.

11/19/2014

Terrific answer to a fundamental question that seems to be fueling much of the resistance to Common Core.

http://vimeo.com/110807219

Dr. Raj Shah explains why math is taught differently than it was in the past and helps address parents' misconceptions about the "new math". Dr. Shah is the owner…

05/29/2013

Smarter Balanced today released its Practice Tests, following the conclusion last week of the Pilot Test program. Extra points for those who can recognize all the items we developed!
http://www.smarterbalanced.org/pilot-test/

Available nearly two years before the assessment system is implemented in the 2014-15 school year, the Smarter Balanced Practice Tests allow teachers, students, parents, and other interested parties to experience the features of online testing and gain insight into how Smarter Balanced will assess s...

05/01/2013

PARCC yesterday released its first set of test specification documents, including assessment blueprints and evidence statement tables.

Valuable insight into PARCC's interpretation of the CCSS.

http://www.parcconline.org/assessment-blueprints-test-specs

PARCC has released a set of test specification documents, including assessment blueprints and evidence statement tables, to help educators and the general public better understand the design of the PARCC assessments.

03/06/2013

PARCC just released a slew of information about its testing plan in its March 2013 Guidance publication, the first in a series of publications the consortium intends to release over the coming months to assist state and local policy makers prepare to administer PARCC assessments in 2014-2015.

Their testing time estimates of 8-10 hours is in line with Smarter Balanced's earlier estimates of 7-8.5 hours.

http://www.parcconline.org/assessment-administration-guidance

02/20/2013

Here's a decent collection of webinars about the Common Core State Standards and the challenges involved in moving from their adoption to implementation.

ASCD has a wealth of informative free webinars on their site. Worth a perusal.

http://www.ascd.org/professional-development/webinars/implementing-the-common-core-webinars.aspx

Founded in 1943, ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner. Our 175,000 members in 119 countries are professional educators from all levels an...

02/13/2013

Not so much publishing-related, but pretty interesting! Be sure to check out the link in the article to the original Invisible Gorilla study.

Certainly there are implications from this research for educational instruction and assessment. "What we're thinking about — what we're focused on — filters the world around us so aggressively that it literally shapes what we see."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/11/171409656/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight

An attention researcher wanted to find out how radiologists would fare in a version of a famous study called the Invisible Gorilla study. He found that 83 percent of the radiologists failed to spot an image of a gorilla on slides they were told to inspect for cancer. It's just one more example of ho...

02/07/2013

Open online courses have really taken off in higher-ed settings. Now they're beginning to creep in to upper K-12. Are they a workable complete solution at K-12, or better seen as another usable tool among many?

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/06/20moocs.h32.html?tkn=LLCFkEai6n5gVpdVTA0s15mpYbJexLpD534x&cmp=clp-sb-edtech

Massively open online courses are growing more popular in colleges and universities, but there are questions about the quality of the courses and the retention of students.

02/04/2013

Doubling up on HS Algebra instruction helps students with more than just math.

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2013/01/31/a-double-dose-of-algebra-improves-math-and-verbal-skills-as-well-as-college-enrollment/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog

07/19/2011

It all started 7 years ago today.
Thanks to all of the incredible educators--writers, editors, and clients among them--who've made this such a grand success.
Happy Birthday, TRPS!