Designed to facilitate the research related to the preparation and presentation of arguments for the intercollegiate debate topic, this manual summarizes issues surrounding educational reform and quality control in American elementary and secondary schools. The excerpts from books, periodicals, and other sources not always readily available to…

Perspectives on the context and results of the investigation conducted by the National Commission on Excellence in Education are presented. It is noted that the Commission's analysis sought to determine the extent to which colleges fail to set and maintain high standards, and the extent to which they fail to make their measures and benchmarks of…

The Bullock Report, published in 1975, described English teaching practices in England and offered recommendations for improving those practices. This paper examines the background of the report and discusses topics in the report that are of particular interest to Americans, including the setting and monitoring of reading and writing standards,…

Three issues of quality in higher education are addressed: defining quality in public higher education, obstacles to the accomplishment of quality, and how to sell the need for quality in public higher education to the government and others. It is suggested that varied standards of student and faculty performance are needed among types of…

The reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly refereed to as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), require states to demonstrate that all public schools make adequate yearly progress (AYP) with respect to student academic achievement. The measurement unit is schools and the following four subgroups within each school:…

This year's Brown Center Report examines several issues that are important to No Child Left Behind and ongoing efforts to improve American schools. The first section of the report analyzes the latest data on student achievement and asks how the nation's students are doing in reading and mathematics. Achievement in rural schools receives a closer…

The National Consortium on Inclusive Schooling Practices (1996) developed a framework to analyze state and local policies and their effects on school inclusion. The framework focuses on standards-based systemic reform across six major policy areas: curriculum, student assessment, accountability, personnel development and professional training,…

This issues brief discusses the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Specifically, it reports on the results of focus groups that explored where people stand on standards-based education and whether they are likely to support or abandon struggling schools. The focus groups consisted of more than 60 participants who represented a broad cross-section…

Concerned with the intrusion of corporate interests into American classrooms, this book presents a case against the business model of educational administration. In each of its seven chapters the book explores how and why the school-business model does not and cannot work. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the expectations currently placed on…

Explores the concept of outcomes-based education using authentic assessment. Highlights implications for information literacy using the following electronic products: newspaper or magazine simulation, videotape production, computer-aided design (CAD), multimedia presentation, and Web page publication. Suggests ways to integrate assessment in the…

Comments on the new National Council on Economic Education standards and calls for more clarification and detail as well as additional standards. Argues that the almost-exclusive focus on principles-based standards ignores that need for explicit skill standards. Discusses possible difficulties for social studies teachers not trained in economics.…

This article identifies problems associated with excluding the scores of students with disabilities who need nonapproved accommodations and explores ways in which these scores can be included in system and student accountability systems. The need for Individualized Education Program teams to establish guidelines and establish a documentation…

This article sketches the historical context for the development of alternate assessment for students with disabilities, describes alternate assessment, and identifies some of the potential benefits of including students with significant disabilities in large-scale assessment. The correlation between alternate assessment scores and the…

This article discusses provisions under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that require all students with disabilities to have access to the general education curriculum and be assessed. The role of the Individualized Education Program in documenting student participation in state and district-wide educational assessments is explored.…

A study that examined state Individualized Education Program (IEP) forms found that out of the 41 with IEP forms, only 5 specifically addressed educational standards on their forms. Thirty-one states addressed the general curriculum on their IEP forms and 30 states listed three or more options for assessment participation. (Contains nine…