This paper examines the standards and principles recently proposed for teaching both history and archeology. By comparing the goals each discipline has set for good teaching, areas of difference and commonality can be discerned and questions concerning historical thinking and what may be called "archeological" thinking can then be…

Successful standards-based reform requires fundamental reconstruction of educational institutions and systems, so that high standards become the basis of curriculum, textbooks and other instructional materials, assessments, graduation requirements, and teacher education, certification, and training. A great failure of our public education system…

Educators who value student work that displays ingenuity and complexity must look beyond "standards" for evidence of achievement. Work of this kind requires exercise of critical judgment based on certain criteria. Applying criteria is a more complicated and intellectual enterprise than applying a standard. Developmental characteristics of…

To realize future continuous learning, thinking, and complex problem-solving goals and standards, educators must exchange content acquisition and knowledge retention as ends in themselves for more adventuresome, experiential learning strategies. Teachers will assume new roles as knowledge managers, team planners, collegial coaches, and…

The National Council on Standards and Testing's final report (1991) endorsed the concept of national education standards that reflect high expectations, provide focus, and embody a dynamic approach. Unresolved implementation difficulties include education system impact, improvement sequence, cost effectiveness, assessment purpose, multiple v.…

Despite an apparent broad-based consensus on the need for standards, it is still appropriate to question their usefulness. Efforts to reform America's schools by specifying standard levels of expected student performance or standard units for measuring outcomes seriously oversimplify a complex and subtle task. Focus should be on (intellectually)…

Evaluation of the quality management system (QMS) of the New Zealand Playcentre Federation, provider of early childhood education, found that it helped establish and maintain national standards of quality. Although foundation programs are staffed by volunteers, their flexibility is not limited nor their philosophy threatened by adherence to the…

Examines major assumptions of curriculum alignment and standards-based reform. Both reforms are potentially long on political expediency but short on educational efficacy. Improved test scores do not necessarily signal curriculum improvement. Educators should become more politically active, practice professional disobedience, or pursue…

In the 2000 presidential campaigns, both Vice-President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush want to enlarge the federal role in education. In separate essays, Bush and Gore explain their plans to invest more federal dollars in improving poor children's educational progress and opportunities. (MLH)

Observes 32 British primary schools during the academic year 1999-2000. Celebrates effective whole-school strategies for literacy, and confident approaches to the National Literacy Strategy. Features schools where achievements in literacy, and particularly in writing, are less secure. Suggests that these schools often share a conscientious, but…

With the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, a "culture war" against public education in the United States commenced. Education was linked to the nation's economic competitiveness and blamed for declining productivity, and the flag of higher standards and greater accountability was raised. Over the past twenty years both the generals and the…

This article reflects on the reliability of the evidence contained in the National Qualifications Framework Impact Study, a longitudinal comparative study conducted by the South African Qualifications Authority since 2002. In so doing, the veracity of evidence-based research in determining the impact of the South African Qualifications Framework…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires states to establish goals for all students and for groups of students characterized by race, ethnicity, poverty, disability, and limited English proficiency and requires schools to make annual progress in meeting these goals. In a number of states, officials have argued that increased federal…

This paper explores alternative approaches to the conception of scientific literacy, drawing on cultural studies and emerging practices in language arts as its framework. The paper reviews historic tensions in the understanding of scientific literacy and then draws on the multiliteracies movement in language arts to suggest a scientific…

The Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training on May 2005 commissioned the Australian Council for Educational Research to investigate and report on models and implementation arrangements for an Australian Certificate of Education. There are ten different certificates currently available across the six states and two territories of…