The balanced development of cognitive and noncognitive skills is crucial not only for well-rounded child development in schools but also for career and life success. Unlike academic learning standards, however, there are rarely comparable "socioemotional learning" (SEL) standards. Under the pressure of high-stakes testing policies…

As teachers shift their practice from traditional student-to-teacher interaction patterns to collaborative discussions around rich mathematics, they often encounter instructional challenges. One such challenge is deciding when to pursue interesting and productive ideas that run contrary to the particular mathematical goal of the lesson. In this…

Textbooks are a widely used educational intervention that can affect student achievement, and the marginal cost of choosing a more effective textbook is typically small. However, we know little about how textbooks get from the publisher to the classroom. We use a lens of institutional theory and interviews with district leaders in a stratified…

In this article, we provide brief overviews of the definitions of formative and summative assessment and a few examples of types of formative and summative assessments that can be used in classroom contexts. We highlight the points that these two types of assessment are complementary and the differences between them are often in the way these…

The aim of this paper is to consider the ways in which Arendt's writings on totalitarianism act as a warning sign for political and miseducational circumstances in the USA. Because the term totalitarianism has been used imprudently (largely in the mass media) to express repressive conditions in so-called models of democracy, this paper seeks to…

The development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) came about because of universal concerns that education was not adapting to the changing world and that students were leaving schools unprepared. The CCSS went into effect during the 2014-2015 school year. Due to the rigorous curriculum and higher expectations compared to past State…

Learning how to formulate, comprehend, and evaluate arguments is an essential part of helping students develop the ability to make better, more reasonable judgments. The Common Core identified argumentation as a fundamental life skill that is broadly important for the literate person. According to the authors, having students engage in an inquiry…

The purpose of this study was to understand the use of interim assessment data to inform mathematics instruction. A qualitative case study methodology was used to analyze the use of interim assessment data in a suburban elementary school. Data sources included interviews with three teachers at varying levels of their profession and the principal;…

The goal of this study was to define the construct and establish the validity of disciplinary literacy, which has recently gained attention from the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers in Common Core State Standards for English…

Today's educators serve the United States public-school system at a time of considerable curricular, technological, and demographic change. In 2010, the Common Core State Standards in Math and English Language Arts significantly altered the curricular landscape of K-12 classrooms. On the heels of this reform came the adoptions of English…

Several research summaries over the last few years have brought attention to the impact that high-quality instructional materials have on student learning. The U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse, which produces summaries of rigorous research, has identified a number of effective curricula with large effect sizes on students'…

College readiness of students and the effectiveness of remedial mathematics courses have been under consideration for the last two decades. There is a considerable misalignment between the expectations of students regarding secondary education and those regarding higher education. Information about current expectations and perspectives of college…

Early childhood and elementary education emerged from a variety of knowledge and research bases. Tensions emerged as they were brought together in a unified public kindergarten through 12th-grade educational system. This review describes how standards and accountability policies have exacerbated tensions between early childhood and elementary…

The Common Core State Standards have placed more emphasis on the close reading of all texts, and have made a point of increasing the use of nonfiction in secondary English classrooms. In this article, the author describes an approach for implementing close reading of literary nonfiction. The approach comes from a small-scale classroom-based…

The purpose of this study was to examine the process through which high school mathematics teachers direct their own learning and professional growth. Improving our understanding of the process of self-directed learning has significance in the field of mathematics education due to the degree to which the Common Core State Standards movement has…