The Common Core State Standards, released in 2010, were rapidly adopted by more than 40 states. Champions maintained that these rigorous standards would transform American education, but the initiative went on to encounter a bumpy path. A decade on, what are we to make of this ambitious effort? What kind of impact, if any, has it had on the…

In this commentary the authors open with the assertion that contemporary education policy, whatever else it may or may not have accomplished, has narrowed the school curriculum by holding schools accountable primarily for their student scores in math and reading. They pursue this argument by pointing out that in surveys, the American public,…

In this webinar, Dr. Edward Roeber, Assessment Director for the Michigan Assessment Consortium, addressed what educators need to know about formative, summative, and interim assessments and how each functions in a coherent assessment system. This Q&A addressed the questions participants had for Dr. Roeber following the webinar. The webinar…

In this article, the authors provide a methodological critique of the current standard of value-added modeling forwarded in educational policy contexts as a means of measuring teacher effectiveness. Conventional value-added estimates of teacher quality are attempts to determine to what degree a teacher would theoretically contribute, on average,…

The articles in this special issue make clear that the field of early education is characterized by a breadth and depth of knowledge unimaginable 200 years ago, even to someone as exceptional as Elizabeth Peabody. This radical feminist used early 19th-century ideas of the "woman's sphere" to suggest that a career in early childhood education was…

This article provides commentary that focuses on school-parent relations in Australia through exploration of schools in the state of Victoria across three aspects: school-parent partnership, parental involvement in the governance of schools, and parental involvement in school accountability processes. Parental involvement is typically at a level…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) preserves the most positive legacy of the No Child Left Behind era--more accurate and transparent data about the performance of all students--and helps states take their efforts to use data in support of student learning to the next level. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) appreciates the opportunity to provide…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) preserves the most positive legacy of the No Child Left Behind era--more accurate and transparent data about the performance of all students--and helps states take their efforts to use data in support of student learning to the next level. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) appreciates the opportunity to provide…

There are two causes that have been suggested as the major contributors to poor student achievement. One view attributes student underachievement to educational factors such as inadequate standards and poor teachers. The other view sees societal factors as the main contributor to low student achievement. This commentary looks at one societal…

In this commentary, Correa Ruiz notes that from his analysis, Owen (2013) identified the essential elements to be included in a modern professional accounting curriculum, described how Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has embedded "Integrated Reporting" in its curriculum, and discussed future curriculum development,…

This commentary on the article titled "Examining the Internal Structure Evidence for the Performance Assessment for California Teachers: A Validation Study of the Elementary Literacy Teaching Event for Tier 1 Teacher Licensure" provides an overview of Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), its relationship to edTPA and…

As states move to implement the Common Core State Standards, key challenges remain. One is how to make sure a high school diploma acknowledges what students have achieved. Should states adopt a two tiered diploma, in which students who pass internationally aligned Common Core exams at a career- and college-ready level receive an…

This article presents the author's critiques on Jim Garrison's essay and focuses on Garrison's concerns about the affronts posed to democracy by the standardization and accountability regimes in education. He rightfully highlights a few critical ways by which standardization and accountability in education reflect and reinforce antidemocratic…

For almost three decades of teaching English and writing, the author has learned that despite years of reading and writing instruction and experiences in school, many, if not most, students have misguided, incomplete, or jumbled perceptions of genre, medium, and text. Two dynamics--traditional transmissional approaches to text as well as…

Concerns about the professional development of teachers have a political dimension as governments around the world engage in the discourse on global standards and want to improve the quality of their school education. Increasingly, teachers are feeling the pressure of securing high achievement scores and large-scale assessments of student learning…