This article presents both sides of the debate as to whether urban teachers need structure or freedom, and then takes a stand on urban teaching in the current high-stakes assessment climate. First, we trace the 30-year development of American educational policy in the area of structuring teaching. Then, we present research from proponents of…

Effective school districts maintain superintendent and school board collegiality which can foster success and connectedness among members. Delagardelle and Alsbury (2008) found that superintendents and board members are not consistent in their perceptions about the work the board does, and Glass (2007) found that states do not require boards to…

In the United States, as public demands for quality teachers have escalated, there has been a corresponding increase in national policy efforts to tie the standards of student success to teacher preparation, licensing, and evaluation. This conceptual paper examines how national authorities used specific policy tools to usurp the state's…

Key legislative objectives for the US Federal educational policy over the past several decades relied heavily on quasi-market strategies (such as school rating, school closure, the contracting out of schools) as central levers in "reforming" public schools. Using financial data on 11 national for-profit firms contracting with schools and…

The call for American students to meet world-class standards in the federal Goals 2000: Education America Act (1994) and No Child Left Behind legislation, as well as state standards and accountability legislation, has been explicitly inclusive: All students must be held to these high standards. Litigation offers the potential to leverage…

Since the inception of Standards for Technological Literacy (STL) in 2000 by the International Technology Education Association (ITEA), a number of changes have occurred in technology education programs at the state level. With the release of the latest standards publication, Advancing Excellence in Technological Literacy (AETL) (ITEA, 2003),…

The first of Goals 2000, "all children in America will start school ready to learn," has been problematic to measure because of the ambiguity of "all,""start,""ready," and "learn." A more measurable and appropriate statement would be "all primary schools will be able to provide developmentally…

Speculates about how opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards might be defined and used at federal and state levels and, in the process, to better understand why OTL standards have become so controversial. The author discusses OTL within the context of The Goals 2000: Educate America Act and how the standards might be used and what they should…

Criteria, not uniform standards, are appropriate for schools, since neither available resources nor socioeconomic levels are uniform. Education's aim is not to train an army marching to the same drummer. Teachers' challenge is to provide conditions fostering the growth of personal characteristics that are socially important and personally…

In 1994, Congress reauthorized Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and passed the Goals 2000: Education America Act. Together, these two laws were supposed to support the development and implementation of standards-based, systemic reform initiatives in the states. Despite these high hopes, Goals 2000 and Title I faced a number of…

Summarizes the major provisions of the Improving America's Education Act (IASA): (1) higher standards for all children; (2) a focus on teaching and learning; (3) flexibility to stimulate local school-based and district initiatives, coupled with the responsibility for student performance; (4) links among schools, parents, and communities; and (5)…

The National Association of Secondary School Principals and the American School Counselor Association concur that a school-counseling program's success requires capitalizing on counselors' training, expertise, and ability to deliver a program that contributes significantly to the school's mission and supports expectations of new standards and…