This report examines how state policymakers designed their accountability systems to meet the NCLB Title I requirements and the implications of its provisions for schools with large numbers of low-income and minority students. The authors conducted their study in six states--Arizona, California, Illinois, New York, Virginia, and Georgia--which are…

A study examined children's reading difficulties at the early grade levels and explored how federal and state governments are responding to this critical education problem. Sections of the study address: background issues in reading achievement; federal response to improve poor reading achievement; state issues in early reading achievement;…

Literacy is a device that society uses to reproduce itself and adapt to social changes. The literacy of interpretation and understanding emphasized in schools is an effort to align school subjects with new markets, workplace tools, democratic processes, family practices, and personal growth. The standards movement, including English standards,…

After seven years of conducting the National Association of College and University Business Officers' benchmark program, designed to establish standards for institutional administration, the association reviews the lessons learned and the challenges ahead in higher education. Representatives of four participating universities offer their…

The intensive drive to promote national standards and assessments has gathered support from unproven connections between U.S. economic success and the nature of learning in schools. Now that teachers are being challenged to produce a bottom-up sea-change in their own classrooms, Uncle Sam's presence in the back of the room may be a growing problem…

What is striking about the Goals 2000 initiative is its virtual omission of the student, except as passive receptacle. To claim that students will learn more with heightened expectations is misleading. For content to take root, it must connect with students' internal "prepared structures" and become a "comfortable friend." In…

America 2000 tries to advance both student achievement and educational freedom (through school choice). Its newly formulated learning standards and achievement tests could benefit children of all regions and backgrounds. America 2000 will strengthen all citizens' future by creating a national mechanism for quality control. (11 references) (MLH)

Examines the effectiveness and assessment of rejoinders in National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) reviews. A study of institutions successful in the accreditation process provided information about rejoinder use by NCATE and assessed factors that did or did not contribute to its effectiveness in the accreditation decision.…

Results of a Council for Basic Education poll of 1,000 voters argue for redefining local control of public education and for raising standards in every part of the country. School boards can ensure easy public access to national standards, demand that local standards be written in plain English, and lobby state officials to clarify statewide…

In recent years, US curriculum policy has emphasized standards-based conceptions of curricula in mathematics and science. This paper explores the data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to argue that the presence of content standards is not sufficient to guarantee curricula that lead to high-quality instruction and…

This paper reports on the results of a survey of mathematics and science candidates for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification. The goal of the survey was to investigate the efficacy of collaboration and group support in preparation for NBPTS. The results of the survey describe the nature of supported preparation,…

simple wedge with its tip made of durable, clear, and appropriate teaching standards forged in the furnace of science and theory widens to bring the materials and processes of art and practice to bear on the work of strengthening and renewing all of teaching by applying the national board's standards and assessment processes. With this model,…

Teacher training is now a requirement for new staff in the further education sector in England. The Sector Skills Council, LifeLong Learning UK, sets national standards for training that include Reflective Practice as an underpinning value and Learning Theory as part of training programmes. There is, however, no statement of what is meant by…

The German dual apprenticeship system has traditionally been viewed as an effective system for generating a highly skilled workforce in the trades, crafts and service sectors. In addition, countries and systems looking to improve their own approaches to vocational education and training (VET) have considered as exemplary the main features of the…

This article examines the introduction of the final examination as an external national system of assessment of students in the transition from secondary school to university education. Since 1991 Slovenia has followed foreign models, the British one in particular; however, it has also considered its own traditional system of education. Students…