Drawing upon research on federalism, localism, and professional autonomy, this article explores how educational stakeholders used social media to discuss and organize against the implementation of Differentiated Accountability in a large Florida school district. The results showed that the stakeholders used social media to engage in sense making…

It was in late May of 2010 that the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) took their final vote on the curriculum standards that will have an impact on what millions of students in Texas as well as dozens of other states will learn about history and social studies for the next 10 years. These "Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills" (TEKS)…

Although the United States federal government has attempted to extinguish the gaps among various populations (socioeconomic, racial, etc.) through educational policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act, such policies may in fact create further divisions among these groups within American society. I base my argument on inadequacies in the…

Department of Education (DOE) secretary Arne Duncan has put school districts on notice: They must show how their students' scores on state tests compare with their scores in national evaluations. The Obama administration also wants states to track and disclose longitudinal data, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. Of course,…

New technology-enabled assessments offer the potential to understand more than just whether a student answered a test question right or wrong. Using multiple forms of media that enable both visual and graphical representations, these assessments present complex, multistep problems for students to solve and collect detailed information about an…

According to professionals in education, change is an ever-present and evolving process. With transformation in education at both state and national levels, technology education must determine a position in this climate of change. This paper reflects the views on the future of technology education based on an ongoing research project. The purpose…

This article presents a roundtable discussion by a panel of professionals--Carl Larson, Scott E. Little, James Reny, and Roger Young. They share creative solutions to many of the facilities and business operations challenges faced by education institutions nationwide. Among the issues discussed is the effect of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on…

With test scores dipping, dropout rates spiking, and disciplinary problems multiplying, student motivation was in short supply at Hope High School in East Providence, Rhode Island, when, in 2002, the state commissioner of education stepped in to stop the slide. After months of planning, the state reorganized the school into three smaller,…

Describes role of school business officials in complying with No Child Left Behind Act's mandated use of school and student data. Includes data mining for educators and information technology solutions. (PKP)

Much of the focus for education technology through the '90s was on technology equity as measured by student access to computers. While efforts to improve technology equity and access were met with wide success in the years that followed, the focus of education technology is now shifting away from such issues as new themes have started to emerge.…

Teacher-librarians are awash in data. Studies on the impact of school library programs on student achievement have now been replicated in 12 states (more are in the works) with amazingly consistent results, these are added to studies dating from the early 1960s that support the importance of school library programs to student achievement and the…

Closing the achievement gap in one of the most diverse school systems in the nation-- one in which more than 160 different nationalities are represented, 120 different languages are spoken and more than 26 percent of the students are living below poverty level-- is not a mission for the weak-hearted. It requires vision, perseverance and a…

For some districts, the current obsession with data grows out of the need to comply with No Child Left Behind and additional accountability-related mandates. For others, it dates way back before the phrase "data-driven decision making" rolled so frequently off the tongues of educators. In either case, there is no denying that an integral…

Much has been written that describes the history of the concept of "technological literacy" and, more recently, a literature attempting to chart emancipatory technoliteracies has emerged over the last decade. Our article begins with a brief examination of the meanings that "technology" and "literacy" have received…

This article presents the special issues of the eighth edition of "Education Week's" annual report on education technology, "Technology Counts." The annual report tracks the economic and policy forces that are converging to push those changes, which are happening at the federal, state, and local levels. States and school…