Political agendas and political attention often change based on media attention and business influence, ultimately impacting policies. Elementary and secondary education policies have evolved to improve academic rigor and increase global competitiveness. Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were established based on state-level elementary and…

This article examines the history of US movements for competencies, often called 'twenty-first century skills', in international context. Ironically, US actors were a source of early ideas about competencies but 'late' adopters of a competency-added reform--a partial and silent policy incorporated within the Common Core State Standards of 2010.…

This study takes advantage of natural variation in alignment and accountability to analyze educator sensemaking of a complex policy environment. It describes how educators in two large, high-accountability districts in New York and Florida made sense of multiple policy changes, including new standards, curriculum, assessments, and teacher…

Background/Context: In recent years, the American political context has become increasingly divided, as exemplified by the debate over the Common Core State Standards. Initially a bipartisan national venture, the standards became immersed in controversy soon after their introduction in 2010. In the aftermath, a growing body of research has…

Purpose: In the last 5 years, many states have introduced science of reading (SOR) reforms that require increased attention to foundational skills instruction in grades K-3. The fast spread of these policies raises questions about the mechanisms that facilitated their rapid adoption. The purpose of this article is to examine how SOR discourses…

Background: In recent years, school districts have experienced a complex policy environment with myriad reforms aimed at addressing longstanding and historically entrenched disparities in opportunities and outcomes between racially minoritized students and White students. One such reform is standards-based accountability, with its emphasis on…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe: (1) What purposes for grant recipients are shared among private foundation that supported the movement to adopt the Common Core State Standards? (2) How do such shared purposes influence the strategic giving practiced by foundations that supported that movement? and (3) How are grants…

Cynthia Coburn, in her 2016 article in the "American Journal of Education"--"What's Policy Got to Do With It?"--states that the field of policy implementation suffers from the propensity to learn the same lessons over and over again. This repetition of mistakes, I argue, stems from a failure to account for predictable patterns…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were released in 2010 with an appendix that claimed to outline a research-based case for the standards. In this article, we examine the CCSS Appendix A as a case of research use in policy by analyzing the type of sources the document cites, the accuracy of its claim-citation relationships, and the frames its…

Teacher evaluation policies have been central to policy efforts to enhance teaching quality. At the same time, ambitious mathematics instruction has been emphasized by teacher education programs as well as by the Common Core State Standards. Drawing on observation and survey data from early-career teachers, this study examines how teachers'…

Pushback against the perceived federal overreach into educational reform has led to renewed calls for a return to local control of schools. In contrast to this general trend, there has continued to be a strong national role for English learner (EL) accountability policies related to EL identification, monitoring and reclassification processes. In…

This study aims to frame democratic proceduralism in education reform by deconstructing elements of democracy and civil society along aspects of legitimacy, representation, the discourse of liberty and naturalization, voting, and transactional discourse. This deconstruction is accomplished by providing a literary review of these factors and…

This article analyzes the messages and strategies of a sample of education interest groups, and assesses their interpretations of the political context to understand how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) lost both political and public support during the crucial period of 2013-2014. Based on interviews with representatives of 19 interest…

"Between the State and the Schoolhouse" examines the Common Core State Standards from the initiative's promising beginnings to its disappointing outcomes. Situating the standards in the long history of state and federal efforts to shape education, the book describes a series of critical lessons that highlight the political and structural…

Over the past 60 years, the federal government has paid much attention to and devoted resources for combating reading failure for children in the United States. Several policies have been enacted over time, from the Reading Excellence Act of 1985, to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, to the adoption of the Common Core State Standards in 2010.…