Focusing on a large study of the implementation of secondary English Language Arts curriculum in California and Washington, we assess how teachers use learning goals to support students developing expert learning practices. Highlighting the value of goal setting to support students' agency in learning to write, we describe teachers' reasons for…

California public schools enroll some 1.2 million students who are classified as English learners (ELs), representing a little more than 19 percent of the statewide student population. Given the size of this population and given the state's efforts over the last decade to recommend to districts materials lists for high-quality, standards-aligned…

Transition curricula are courses, learning modules, or online tutorials typically developed jointly by secondary and postsecondary faculty and offered no later than 12th grade to students at risk of being placed into remedial math or English programs in college. Based on interviews and other data, this brief describes key elements of English…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

California has the largest enrollment and fastest growing population of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the country. Just as ELLs enter school with diverse academic, linguistic, cultural, and social assets, teachers also enter the classroom with varying levels of preparation, skills, experiences, and knowledge about how to meet the cultural…

Educators and policymakers have debated in recent years how best to improve academic performance in the middle grades. In the absence of outcomes-based research about what works, school districts have reshuffled grade configurations, bolstered their focus on "academic rigor," and worked to ensure that students are engaged in school as…

Discusses curriculum reform in California. Suggests choosing works that have quality and depict what is universal in human nature in order to select literature that is meaningful to all. (MS)

This appendix accompanies "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better. A Large-Scale Study of Middle Grades Practices and Student Outcomes. Initial Research Report." This appendix contains the full bibliography of all research and policy documents consulted during the development of the ten research domains and three…

The Los Angles County Office of Education developed the Educational Communications Network (ETN) to help implement English curriculum reform mandated by the California State Board of Education in 1987. ETN has become an electronic staff development distribution system using satellite-transmitted live and interactive inservice programing. (MLH)

Intended for teachers, administrators, members of school district governing boards, and concerned others, this model curriculum guide was developed to reflect the strongest possible professional consensus about the English-language arts content that every student in the State of California should be exposed to before graduating from high school.…

THE SAN RAFAEL MORE ABLE LEARNER CURRICULUM WAS GEARED TO A SELECT GROUP OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS. IT ATTEMPTED "TO DEEPEN APPRECIATIONS, ATTITUDES, AND UNDERSTANDINGS THROUGH INCREASED KNOWLEDGE OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND TO DEVELOP PROFICIENCIES AND SKILLS IN SELECTED AREAS IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES." THE CURRICULUM OFFERED A…

Describes a project to integrate teaching of the separate language arts in three California elementary schools. Includes the philosophical statements of the project; guidelines; activities for before, during, and after reading; and a positive evaluation of the project. (HTH)

ENRICHED ACTIVITIES DEVELOPED BY TEACHERS ARE LISTED IN OVERLAPPING SUBJECT AREAS. MATERIALS, GAMES, AND EXERCISES IN ARITHMETIC, LANGUAGE, MUSIC, READING, SCIENCE, AND SOCIAL STUDIES ARE ALSO LISTED. EXAMPLES ARE--(1) AN OUTLINE CLASSIFYING AN INSECT AND OBSERVING ITS HABITS, (2) ARITHMETIC PROBLEMS TO DEVELOP LOGIC IN SOLVING WORD PROBLEMS, (3)…

A study has been examining current directions in state education agency efforts to reform the elementary school language arts curriculum in four large, geographically diverse states with different policy mechanisms--California, New York, Wisconsin, and Texas. To understand policy development and implementation and discern how advocates advance a…

This paper presents the research and methodology and analyses used for the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" research. This appendix contains the following sections: (1) Overview; (2) Constructing the Survey Data File; (3) Constructing Composite Independent Variables (Subdomains); (4) Constructing Longitudinal Outcome Variables; (5)…