Policy can be a useful tool for effecting change, but policy analysis, which shapes policy development, has been underused in music education research. This paper demonstrates how Bardach's (2000) Eightfold Path can be used to develop solutions to problems in music education. Some have argued that school music programs do not prepare students to…

Includes "On the Common Core of Learning" (Kennedy); "Constitutional Implications of National Curriculum Standards" (Arons); "Arguments against National Performance Standards" (Fulk, Mantzicopoulos, Hirth); and "The Painful Lessons of Introducing the National Curriculum in England" (Foster). (SK)

The process of instituting standards is well under way, thanks to mathematics teachers' efforts, the Bush Administration and governors' agreements about establishing national educational goals, and President Clinton's 1994 Goals 2000 legislation. There is no danger of a nationally imposed curriculum. States are using the standards process in…

In developing a national curriculum, ways must be found to challenge students and teachers, preserve initiative, and maintain democratic control. President Bush's New American Achievement Tests will consist of a system of examinations to be administered by individual states or clusters of states. Conversion should embody a grand,…

Discusses the standards movement, several standards categories (content, performance, equal-opportunity, and world-class), state and professional standard-setting activities, ongoing controversies, teacher participation opportunities, and need for public support. The New Standards and Equity 2000 projects provide linkages to standards-based reform…

What is striking about the Goals 2000 initiative is its virtual omission of the student, except as passive receptacle. To claim that students will learn more with heightened expectations is misleading. For content to take root, it must connect with students' internal "prepared structures" and become a "comfortable friend." In…

This document contains proceedings of the hearing held on September 12, 1995, before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies, which is a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. The purpose of the hearing was to hear testimony on the funding for Goals 2000, the Educate…

This paper argues that education in the United States will be increasingly intertwined with and impacted by federal expectations, requirements, and standards. The paper describes the impacts and effects of national goals and national assessment on K-12 and higher education. A review of state and federal responses to "A Nation at Risk"…

The National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) was established in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. One of NESIC's duties is to identify areas in which specific educational standards ought to be developed. Several complex issues arise in carrying out this duty, such as: the need for standards in such non-content areas as…