The Ashland University's superintendent licensure program had not been revised and updated for the last several years. With all of the educational reforms in the first part of this new millennium, there was a pressing need to redefine and develop the overall program and courses embedded in it. An action plan was set up to carry out several steps…

Beginning in January of 2010, the Carnegie Corporation of New York funded a two-step process to develop a new set of state developed science standards intended to prepare students for college and career readiness in science. These new internationally benchmarked science standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were completed in…

"Transforming Science Assessment: Systems for Innovation," is a series of resources designed to provide state education leaders with: (1) Information about how states are currently pursuing statewide assessment systems in science; (2) Analyses of what features influence different approaches, with an eye to supporting state leaders as…

The push for accountability in public schooling has extended to the measurement of teacher performance, accelerated by federal efforts through Race to the Top. Currently, a large number of states and districts across the country are computing measures of teacher performance based on the standardized test scores of their students and using them in…

This article illustrates the infusion of self-determination approaches (e.g., futures planning) within a schoolwide context. Unfortunately, some students are not explicitly instructed by school staff to address their plans for the future. This may be a result of school professionals' feelings of inadequacy to address skill sets outside of…

Since the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, standards-based individualized education plans (IEPs) have been an expectation for serving students with disabilities in the K-12 public school setting. Nearly a decade after the mandates calling for standards-based IEPs, special educators still struggle…

When the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards project began, there really was nowhere else to go but up. The project was up against great odds--a dearth of funding, a history of incivility amongst the disciplines within social studies, a knack for ending up in media battles over what should be taught in…

This article describes a 21st century how-to model for successful career and technical education (CTE) programs. The Geometry in Construction program is the brainchild of two educators, a CTE and a math teacher, who wanted to design a rigorous geometry course taught through a project-based curriculum. This article discusses how they did it, and…

"Something in Common" is the first book to provide a detailed look at the groundbreaking Common Core State Standards and their potential to transform American education. This book tells the story of the unfolding political drama around the making of the Common Core State Standards for math and English language arts, which were adopted by…

In January 2007, the Oregon State Board of Education mandated a new Oregon diploma that strengthened high school graduation requirements with the aim of improving student readiness for college and career. Among the major changes was a requirement that students demonstrate proficiency in nine "essential skills" that included the…

About three-fourths of the states have already adopted the Common Core State Standards, which were designed to provide more clarity about and consistency in what is expected of student learning across the country. However, given the brief time since the standards' final release in June, questions persist among educators, who will have the…

This paper describes a major initiative in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to develop a statewide, standards-based, student report card for reporting the learning progress of individual students at all grade levels (K-12). Led by a team of researchers with expertise in grading and reporting, 36 educators from three diverse school districts created…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate decision making in the Common Core State Standards Initiative as the change process moved from research, development and diffusion activities to adoption of the Common Core State Standards by the states. A decision-oriented evaluation model was used to describe the four stages of planning, structuring,…

In this technical report, data are presented on the predictive and concurrent relation between various student demographic variables (gender, race/ethnicity, special education status, Title 1 status, English language learning status, and economic disadvantage) and three reading easyCBMs (passage reading fluency, vocabulary, and multiple-choice…

This article discusses the nature and value of accreditation, organization of accreditation agencies, costs, and general accreditation procedures. (JMF)