Wow! Is it already August 15th? For those of us living in New York, that generally means we have just over two weeks of summer break left before school begins. How time flies.
Speaking of the waning summer, if your school is still looking to purchase workbooks for this coming school year, make sure to do so as soon as possible. We’ve still got quite a bit of them in stock now, but by next week, the delivery times will start to push past Labor Day weekend. For New York City teachers, we now have all of our workbooks, including Common Core Algebra I in Spanish, on ShopDOE and the FAMIS ordering systems. Find all of the important information using the document below:
eMATHinstruction ShopDOE and FAMIS List 2018
Now that the school year is almost upon us, we have new additions to each course. As always, please feel free to send us suggestions about what you would like to see as monthly add-ons to various courses. Always best to catch us with your suggestions at least a month ahead of time. Assessments are always in demand and we have a bunch for you this month.
In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons, we bring you a Unit 3 (Functions) Quiz. This quiz goes through Lesson 3 of the unit and we provide you with both a Form A and a Form B version of the quiz. This is the first year of our Common Core Geometry Add-Ons. For the Geometry Add-Ons this year we want to make sure you all have a Form B test for each unit. So, for this month we give you a Unit 1 and Unit 2 Form B assessment. These mirror assessments can be used as makeup for the typical exams or just as replacements.
For our Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons, this month we bring you a Unit 2 Quiz (Also Functions). This quiz should be given after Lesson 3. We provide both a Form A and Form B version of this quiz. In Algebra 2 and Trigonometry Add-Ons, we provide a Unit 1 and Unit 2 Form B quiz. In Alg2/Trig, the first two units are very short, so we did not write full unit assessments for them. Here we provide a Form B for the “quizzes” for each of these units.
This year we are going to have our eye on the changes coming due to the Next Generation Standards in New York State. For those outside of the state (or those out of the loop), New York decided, like many states, to massage the Common Core Standards and given them a less politically charged name (they’ve even taken it off of the NY standardized tests). These standards do not go into effect at the K-8 level until the 2020-2021 school year. They will first be tested at the 3-8 levels in the spring of 2021. Here is a graphic of the timeline:
Here’s a link to that page:
Next Generation Math Standards Implementation Timeline
Now, I get a lot of questions about when we will be incorporating the Next Gen changes into our Alg I/Geo/Alg II series of curricula/books. Well, New York State has been vague, at best, about when the changes will be implemented at the high school level. BUT, if you look at the fine print of the Timeline graphic above, you see:
Two things to note here: (1) NYSED has not yet decided on when these standards will be implemented, so we must assume the status quo in terms of the assessment content and (2) the implementation of the Next Gen standards on tests will not happen before June of 2021.
We plan to really start modifying our high school texts later this academic year and will continue to create lessons that fit these standards as add-ons. We do not plan on actually changing the workbooks until the 2020-2021 academic year. We also hope to release something for kids younger than 9th graders for the Next Gen standards as well. More on that later this year.
That’s it for now. Continue to enjoy the rest of summer. Get out to your local fairs, waterparks, and festivals. As for me, I’m looking forward to taking a long weekend to camp with the kids.