As "Foreign Language Annals" concludes its 50th anniversary, it is fitting to review the past and peer into the future of standards-based education and assessment. Standards are a common yardstick used by educators and researchers as a powerful framework for conceptualizing teaching and measuring learner success. The impact of standards…

Counseling centers are under intense pressure to prevent student suicide. When a student dies by suicide, the counseling center practitioner may be held liable as though all such deaths are ultimately preventable. Expectations that suicide can be prevented 100% of the time conflict with the actual capabilities of treatment providers and disregard…

The authors examine the functions of literacy in three accountability-driven English language arts classrooms. To explore the interplay between transmission-oriented, standards-based instruction and local interpretations and uses of literacy, they employed Pennycook's (2010) notion of relocalization. The authors examine how accountability…

Higher education students in the U.S. have been transferring at record levels. More than two-thirds who earn bachelor's degrees from four-year institutions today have changed colleges at least once according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. However, the U.S. Department of Education reported in 2015 that on average, students…

For at least the past 40 years, the mathematics education community has attempted to characterize important learning goals for students that are not captured completely in specifications of mathematical content objectives. Mathematical processes such as problem solving, reasoning and representation have been prominent in these attempts. The most…

Teacher perceptions of fourth-grade students' readiness to learn Ohio's fourth-grade social studies standards were explored through this sequential explanatory mixed methods study. Implementation of Ohio's new reading policies in the lower elementary may have had an unintended future impact on the teaching of social studies in the upper elementary…

The purpose of this report is to profile a selection of emerging approaches to judging quality in higher education that represent a range of stakeholder interests and perspectives. This report is divided into three sections. "Quality Assurance at a Crossroads" highlights perceived challenges for the U.S. accreditation system in a…

The purpose of this research was to investigate teachers' perceptions of professional development programs in Kuwait. These perceptions were compared to the criteria that underpin Learning Forward's standards of professional development. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative data, separate analyses of the data, and then a merging…

This brief tells the story of two states, Arizona and New Hampshire, and their efforts to set ambitious goals for increasing educational attainment among their residents. Based primarily on interviews with key state leaders, these stories highlight the unique path each state took to prioritize its goals for postsecondary attainment and are…

In addition to accrediting American colleges and universities that enroll over 20 million students a year, the US regional accrediting agencies also accredit international institutions. Existing research on international accreditation has not previously investigated the impact that international activity might have on the standards used by US…

In the context of the "Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2015" (HES Framework), 'scholarship' means those activities concerned with gaining new or improved understanding, appreciation and insights into a field of knowledge, and engaging with and keeping up to date with advances in the field. This includes…

Internationally, twenty-first century teacher education is enmeshed in a globalized world where the only constants are socio-cultural and economic change. This chapter examines these ideas critically in the context of teacher education policy in Scotland. Although Scotland has not been immune to the influences of the Global Educational Reform…

As cultural and racial demographics continue to diversify across college campuses, the First Year Composition (FYC) classroom becomes a site wherein faculty can engage in transformative pedagogical strategies to maximize ways in which students' culturally diverse backgrounds can influence their rhetorical strategies in meaningful ways. However, a…

When Superintendent Curtis Craig, Ed.S., came to the Rensselaer Central Schools Corporation in 2015, he discovered an assessment problem common to many districts. The assessment results--Renaissance STAR and Acuity at the time--were not well aligned to the new, more rigorous standards the district and state had recently adopted. In addition, some…

High-risk alcohol use on college campuses is associated with several negative consequences for students. Social norms campaigns are a widely used intervention aimed at decreasing high-risk alcohol use in a university population but their efficacy can vary based on students' peer groups and gender. Research on gendered drinking norms for college…