Much research has noted the misalignment between kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) academic standards and curriculum materials used in classrooms. Many states and education organizations have been pushing for greater use of standards-aligned curriculum, especially during the past several years. In this report, the authors share results…

This book describes how different nations have defined the core competencies and skills that young people will need in order to thrive in the twenty-first-century, and how those nations have fashioned educational policies and curricula meant to promote those skills. The book examines six countries--Chile, China, India, Mexico, Singapore, and the…

In the past several decades, Boston has been a proving ground for new strategies such as mayoral control, charter schools, and expanded access to early childhood education. Located in a state known for rigorous standards and accountability, Boston Public Schools (BPS) has consistently ranked among the top-performing large public school districts…

The purpose of this comparative case study was to explore the ways educators at the school-level experience a federally directed curriculum policy change and examine the contextual factors that impacted the way it was initially implemented. Application of an organizational learning (OL) lens was incorporated to help illuminate the ways educators…

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare key elements of the actions that states in the USA and Australia took to implement the Common Core State Standards or Phase One of the Australian Curriculum, and what processes and products they used to facilitate implementation of these innovations. A rubric adapted from a diagnostic tool,…

"Learning progressions" are one of the most important assessment design ideas to be introduced in the past decade. In the United States, several committees of the National Research Council (NRC) have argued for the use of learning progressions as a means to foster both deeper mastery of subject-matter content and higher level reasoning…

The aim of the present contribution is to investigate similarities and differences of strengths in science competences between countries, based on TIMSS 2003 data. Analyses are based on systematic investigation of patterns of p values for individual science items. Hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to establish meaningful groups of…

Academic sociologists have recently increased their focus on improving high school sociology. Reform efforts include networking between teachers and universities, improving curriculum, and enhancing teacher training. I propose that this list be expanded to include setting curricular standards. Current trends in educational reform center on…

The author investigated the alignment of reading instruction to Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for Reading, grades 1-4 (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 1998a). Teachers in 18 hearing-only, 10 mixed (hearing and deaf students), and 8 deaf-only classrooms were study participants. Teacher groups demonstrated equal alignment to the…

This study uses document analysis and comparison to investigate the connotations of National Standards for Visual Arts of the United States and Taiwan. The major difference between these two sets is the content structure. The U.S. standards focus on the differentiation of students' abilities by grade based on six content areas of arts disciplines.…

Representatives from 13 Central and Eastern European countries, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development met for 2 days in Berlin to continue European Training Foundation (ETF) efforts to design a methodology for formulating standards in vocational training (VT)…

Education Resource Strategies (ERS) works with school and district leaders to help them more strategically use resources--people, time, and money--to improve student performance. They have found that many school districts begin creating small high schools without a clear sense of how much they will spend or how to ensure that small schools…

This report is the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's first ever comprehensive analysis of education reform and results in the 50 states. For each of them, this report examines: (1) student achievement, with a focus on poor and minority students; (2) achievement trends since the early 1990s for these same students; and (3) reform efforts centering on…

Characteristics of preschool provision for early childhood education in Malawi are compared with that in Kenya and Zambia. Highlighted are government involvement in preschool education as a reflection of changing economic and social structures, national preschool objectives, national and local teacher training programs, curriculum development,…

Disadvantages and advantages that physical therapy and allied health programs have encountered in utilizing a mastery learning approach are identified, based on a literature review and questioning of health educators. Recommendations concerning the implementation of this approach at California State University, Fresno are offered, along with a…