The Vermont Institute for Science, Math, and Technology (VISMT) and a team of Vermont educators have developed the Vermont Science Assessment in collaboration with CTB/McGraw-Hill. This assessment provides Vermont teachers and school officials with student performance data on scientific understanding as they implement Vermont's Framework of…

This video is one of a four-part series which is designed to introduce teachers and parents to standards and teaching in a standards-based environment, and aims to help teachers and parents understand how teaching with standards can change classrooms, work assignments, and student performance. This video, "A Parent's Primer," demonstrates what…

This guide is designed to provide guidance to New York state school districts and teachers to help students achieve the music standards. Teachers throughout New York state met to compile these field-tested lesson plans, teaching strategies, assessments, and resources for teachers of students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12, in all areas of…

As part of Vermont's efforts to set shared educational goals, this document describes what is expected of Vermont students. It is designed as a guide to parents about what teachers and schools are doing to help students meet the state's new expectations. Vermont has defined an educational framework that encourages many different learning styles…

This book intends to make the contents of the standards in the eight liberal-arts subjects more accessible to teachers, parents, and the general public. Content standards identify what students are expected to know and be able to do and can provide a way to identify the knowledge and skills that society wants young people to possess. The volume is…

The Elementary School Proficiency Assessment (ESPA) is the state test taken by students in the fourth and fifth grade. It is designed to give a school information about how well the students are achieving in the areas required by New Jersey's Core Curriculum Content Standards. For 2001, a new subject Social Studies has been added to the ESPA. The…

This book on educational standards describes how standards create more harm than good, and it takes to task the pro-standards movement. The volume opens with a discussion of what is wrong with standards, claiming that the push for standards generally results in long lists of facts that are freighted with cultural baggage and are typically the…

This fourth report in the Southern Regional Education Board's series on middle-grades education recommends a number of actions that states, districts, and schools can take to improve middle-school student performance. These recommendations address lagging achievement, a lack of focus on academics, unprepared teachers, and a need for leadership and…

Following adoption of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in 1998, new prekindergarten curriculum guidelines were developed. These voluntary guidelines articulate what 3- and 4-year-olds should know and be able to do and provide a means to align prekindergarten programs with the TEKS curriculum. The guidelines are intended to assist…

Suggests a program for the semiskilled worker or nonacademic student that could help address the present needs of the students as well as prepare them for future careers. (WD)

Examines concepts of excellence from the viewpoint of individual habits of mind that foster it, the role of culture in promoting it, the relationship to technical mastery versus world class performance, and its controversial relationship to equity. Recommendations for promoting excellence in gifted students and all students are provided. (CR)

Explains that courts have generally subjected disciplinary action to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment, while academic sanctions have garnered greater deference. Examines the judicial history of this dual track, establishes the difficulty of characterizing as either disciplinary or academic the countless situations reflecting…

Describes how teachers at Mason High School (Ohio) prepare students to pass state citizenship proficiency tests. Argues that these tests cannot be accurate measures of learning but that the objectives behind them provide sound educational goals. Shows how students of all abilities can be assisted in meeting the proficiency standards. (DSK)

Considers how when literacy educators become more politically involved, they have more influence on the legislation that affects their own lives and their students' futures. Hopes to reach educators who are pessimistic about new standards and hopes they find practical suggestions for ways to better understand what new standards reforms and…

Tells a story of woodcrafters' city as a metaphor for testing and learning in today's educational system. Considers the structure of organized education addressing standards, logic and science. (SG)