Independent and other accredited schools and colleges are mandated every 10 years to devote considerable time, thought, and treasure to accreditation process. Formerly often regarded as hollow drudgery and something of a "pro forma" exercise, the accreditation process--the preparation of an exhaustive self-study, the sometimes welcome and…

Regardless of what one thinks of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the current national education legislation has demonstrated the power and potential of learning standards linked with systems of accountability to influence classroom experiences. Unfortunately, the changes promoted by the legislation have tied the professional hands and suppressed the…

This article responds to comments on the authors' "Educational Researcher" article "Common Core Standards: The New U.S. Intended Curriculum" (April 2011). The authors note points of agreement and difference with the commentators. They observe that Cobb and Jackson, in their response, and Beach, in his, appear to accept the…

Arizona's Vail School District won this year's Sylvia Charp Award because of its revolutionary--and truly collaborative--approach to standards-based curriculum development that it is sharing with the rest of the state. This article takes a look at how they did it.

An undergraduate student breaks into a professor's office and steals the answers to an exam; the university initiates only process available--discipline pursuant to regulations governing student behavior through judicial affairs. An undergraduate student fabricates lab data and is flunked for the course; the student initiates only process…

Principals' wheelbarrows are full of initiatives: closing learning gaps, preparing for the Common Core State Standards, differentiating instruction, and improving college and career readiness, to name a few. Meanwhile, principals have too few assets in their toolboxes to meet all the hefty demands. Taking the long view, it becomes clear that true…

This is an exciting time to be in science education. New science standards are being developed by a group of science educators from across the country, working with 26 states in a process managed by Achieve, Inc., a non-profit education reform organization. The development of the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) promises to be the most…

California is on the precipice of implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which were developed through an initiative of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reflect the knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers. In California, one of 45 adopting states, the standards…

California's public schools have some of the strongest content standards in the country. Yet many students who have come through the state's school system are failing placement examinations when they get to California colleges. Instead of taking college-level English courses, they are shunted off into remedial classes. When a group of high school…

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The law had a very simple mission: kick-start an economic recovery through strategic investment. Deep within the law were a number of key education initiatives, including Race to the Top (RTT), which was a way to invest in the nation's education system…

Recent efforts to reform mathematics education in the United States have caused confusion for those at home. Parents and caregivers who learned math through traditional approaches are unsure how to help their children with math taught in unfamiliar ways (Peressini, 1998; Remillard & Jackson, 2006). Many educational researchers believe that, in…

Teachers' professional development is a key to any educational change and is critical when leading and assimilating change, such as introducing standards into classrooms. A national professional development (PD) framework was developed for the implementation of science standards published by the Israeli Ministry of Education, which was activated…

Reading standards are regarded by many as the true yardstick by which to measure school effectiveness, and the relative standards achieved by different generations are often debated by adults. Some young people do not perceive reading to be of anything like such importance, however, using digital communication habitually and easily. Each year a…

The problems that we face in our ever-changing, increasingly global society are multidisciplinary, and many require the integration of multiple science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts to solve them. National calls for improvement of STEM education in the United States are driving changes in policy, particularly in…

As with other fields in education, career and technical education (CTE) has experienced a dramatic transformation since its inception in the 19th century. Since the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, there has been limited research on the impact, or possibilities, that recent legislation has had on…