A new set of "publishers' criteria" crafted by the lead writers of the common core in mathematics is intended to help reshape K-8 instructional materials nationwide by spelling out what it means to align faithfully with the math standards adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. The document blends general guidance with some real…

Proficiency-based instruction focuses on what students know and can do. Proficiency-based teaching and learning is a teacher-led initiative in Oregon that began in the early 1990s with efforts to establish a proficiency-based admissions requirement system for Oregon's state colleges and universities. Meanwhile, many public alternative schools…

Since March of 2009, the Utah System of Higher Education has been a partner with the Lumina Foundation for Education in the Tuning USA project, Lumina's first experiment in introducing the European concept of degree "tuning" to American academia. Developed in the European Union as a way to create common degree standards across multiple…

As current mathematics standards, such as the Common Core, are being implemented throughout the United States, it has become evident that teachers need support to enact the tenets of those standards. To help in this endeavor, this article was published as a guideline to emphasize to mathematics education stakeholders that "effective teaching…

While comics have received widespread acceptance as a literary genre, instructors and scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have been slower to adopt comics, largely because of a lingering difficulty understanding how the characteristics of the form relate to our work in the classroom. Using as guides the "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year…

"Transforming Science Assessment: Systems for Innovation," is a series of resources designed to provide state education leaders with: (1) Information about how states are currently pursuing statewide assessment systems in science; (2) Analyses of what features influence different approaches, with an eye to supporting state leaders as…

On December 10, 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) was signed by President Barack Obama and became the United States' current national education law (United States Department of Education [U.S. DOE], n.d.). The ESSA was a long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Unlike previous…

The new approach to the higher education modernization based on the realization of competency-building modular programs has been considered. This approach closely supports competency-building approach to professional training of modern specialists within the context of current theoretical and methodological principles. The European dimension of…

History is a process. Just as science is the quest to discover and understand the truth about the world we live in, so history is the quest to discover and understand the truth about our world in the millennia that led up to this moment. These authors asked children who ranged in age from 6 to 12, first grade to sixth, how we know what happened in…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) offer a vision of science teaching and learning that presents both learning opportunities and demands for all students, particularly student groups that have traditionally been underserved in science classrooms. The NGSS have addressed issues of diversity and equity from their inception, and the NGSS…

There's broad commitment to ensuring that all high-school graduates are college- and career-ready, but heated debate about the best means of achieving that goal. The big question is, how can schools both respect the diversity of students' interests and ambitions and set a high bar for all? In this forum, two longtime advocates of high…

Elementary science experiences help develop students' views of science and scientific interests. As a result, teachers have been charged with the task of inspiring, cultivating, recruiting, and training the scientists needed to create tomorrow's innovations and solve future problems (Business Roundtable 2005). Who will these future…

In early childhood and primary (PreK-2) grades, subitizing is a critical skill that helps children meet early mathematics standards. Discover ways teachers can infuse this critical skill into their math curriculum.

Grade inflation has been a consistently ignored problem in the public schools and universities for over fifty years. Grades keep getting higher and higher for a multitude of reasons. Students expect high grades. Parents demand high grades of their children and teachers. Some administrators implicitly or explicitly require that their teachers give…

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg (N.C.) Schools, educators have leapt into the Common Core with both feet, creating an internal website for teachers to share performance tasks and implementing systemwide, school-based professional learning that has put the standards into practice and tested students on them in the 2012-13 school year. The district began…