All versions of top-down reform have an Achilles heel: Their focus on delivering the details of two or three measurable priorities is suitable only for systems pursuing traditional and comparatively narrow achievement goals. A digital age of complex skills, cultural diversity, and high-speed change calls for more challenging educational goals and…

The challenges facing our children in the 21st century are rapidly changing. As a result, schools bear a greater responsibility to prepare students for college, career, and life and must be held accountable for more than just testing and reporting on a narrow set of outcomes aimed at minimum levels of competency. Thus, scholars, educators, and…

For more than a decade, states have evaluated school performance largely through a single measure--test scores--and rated schools on whether they improved students' performance in reading or math. The idea was to focus schools' attention on the outcomes that mattered most and to focus states' attention on the schools that needed the most help in…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires state accountability systems to include indicators of "school quality and student success" along with indicators of academic outcomes. The new law provides an important opportunity for states to broaden the definition of student success to include measures of students' social-emotional, as…

This paper examines the options available to states to redefine their accountability systems as they begin to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The new law provides the possibility that states can create more balanced systems of support and accountability focused on educating young people so they can become productive, engaged…

This policy brief examines standards-based approaches that hold promise for shaping a common vision of skilled teaching commensurate with the national goal of preparing all students for college and careers. Numerous studies confirm that teachers are the most significant school-based factor in improving student achievement, particularly for the…

Childhood and adolescent obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions in the United States and are growing. The sedentary routines found in schools and in the home as well as the overexposure to unhealthy snacks and nonnutritional foods contribute to the pervasiveness of this disease that afflicts America's children. Obese children face…

Essays on the campaign to establish English as the United States' official language include: "Official Languages and Language Planning" (Richard Ruiz); "Una lingua, una patria?: Is Monolingualism Beneficial or Harmful to a Nation's Unity?" (David F. Marshall and Roseann D. Gonzalez); "Canadian Perspectives on Official…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]