This study aimed to explore the extent to which two digital reading programs used in Georgia did or did not fully align with Georgia's instructional reading standards. Many commercial curricula do not appear to effectively support students in demonstrating reading proficiency as measured by state and national assessment outcomes. Therefore, this…

A key responsibility of higher education providers is the accurate certification of the knowledge and skills attained by their students. However, despite an intense focus on developing relevant quality assurance regulations, academic standards in higher education have remained resistant to explication and consistent application. In this paper, we…

Qualifying a student for a learning disability can be difficult to know if they truly are learning disabled or is something else going on. Due to the IQ discrepancy model, to qualify a student with a learning disability, you must have an average IQ, but you are performing below grade level in achievement (Willis, 2019). However, there could be a…

Around the world, on every continent, and in every country, children play. Though culturally contextualized, play is a global common childhood experience. There are cultural variations in children's play activities, and though play looks and sounds different across the world, there are also commonalities. Though scholars find it difficult to…

School reform efforts are situated within social and political contexts and, as such, are susceptible to the commonsense discourses circulating through, and shaping, society. Two discourses prevalent in US education reform are those perpetuating the ideologies of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. These ideologies are inherently…

Although curriculum standards define educational requirements that students are expected to learn and teachers are expected to teach, little is known about the curricular philosophies of the Chinese Special School Curriculum Standards for students with intellectual disabilities. This study uses content analysis to examine how different curricular…

There is an extensive history of collaboration with respect to policy initiatives between the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). In pursuit of promoting high quality inclusive education for all young children, DEC and NAEYC have…

While states are increasingly adopting and implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as goalposts for student learning, there is less clear consensus around the science instruction needed in classrooms to realize this vision. In this study, I investigate the visions of expertise in science instruction that three science teacher…

High-quality K-12 instructional materials can meaningfully improve teaching practice and student achievement, especially when paired with professional learning support. Yet state policymakers have usually left ultimate authority for textbook selection to school district leaders. Consequently, the quality of materials across U.S. classrooms and…

Science teachers crave instructional materials and an increasing number of them are going to online educational marketplaces to purchase them. This study reports on a content analysis of highly rated products marketed for middle level science (grades 6, 7, and/or 8) on TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT), one of the most prominent online educational…

This transcendental phenomenology study was designed to examine the phenomena of the paid internship portion of the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program (NCPFP) through specific graduates of the universities that offer the scholarship. The study aimed to answer the following research question: How does the paid internship experience from the…

Alignment between standards and assessments is a fundamental component of the larger effort to ensure appropriate and fair use of standards-based assessments and achievement of successful standards-based reform. This article focuses on conceptual and technical issues as well as potential strategies in evaluating alignment between large-scale,…

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) recently released standards to guide the practice of school librarians. The "National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries" (2018) were put forward as a single text with integrated frameworks. One year later, the "ALA/AASL/CAEP School…

The adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) requires many teachers to drastically change their classroom instruction. Curricular materials offer a tool to support this transition, but there are questions about the degree to which available curricula truly reflect the shifts required by the NGSS. This study proposes a framework of…

In the field of second language assessment, there is limited empirical research on the alignment of different language proficiency standards. This study aims to establish level correspondences for overall language proficiency between China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages…