Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders and teachers make sense of multiple accountability policies, including the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, and how this process relates to school priorities and classroom practice. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a comparative case study…

This report is part of a five-report series on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that examines the Every Student Succeeds Act's (ESSA's) amendments to IDEA, explains their likely impact on students with disabilities as ESSA implementation progresses, and provides recommendations. The National Council on Disability conducted…

Little to no professional research exists regarding the challenges that juvenile justice school administrators encounter in leading their respective schools. This study sought to identify the challenges juvenile justice school administrators experience and whether they are similar to those experienced by their K-12 counterparts. This study…

Since March 2021, school district leaders have been developing and implementing plans to spend their "ARP dollars," that is, the historic $122 billion allocated from the American Rescue Plan to help districts recover from the devastating effects of the pandemic. The money, also referred to as ESSER funds (Elementary and Secondary School…

As the authors describe in Chapter 7 of their new book, "The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myth, and Lies," the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative continues to ramble on, without evidence to support its efficacy. That is because education reform in the United States is being driven largely by ideology, rhetoric, and dogma instead of…

The purpose of professional learning is for educators to develop the knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions they need to help students perform at higher levels. It is not a simple matter to connect the dots between high quality professional learning and student outcomes. However, the theory of action that drives the standards, and indeed…

Education matters. Every year, more students are pursuing postsecondary education. In fact, during the 2012-2013 academic year, over two million students were studying in Canadian postsecondary institutions, making it even more important to ensure that our students are getting the education and training they need to succeed. Notably, it is not…

This study aimed to investigate the compatibility of developed mathematics textbooks' content (grades 6-8) in Saudi Arabia with NCTM standards in the areas of: number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis and probability. To achieve that goal, a list of (NCTM) standards for grades (6-8) were translated to Arabic language,…

Project-based learning (PBL) takes student engagement to a higher level through reflective collaboration, inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, and personal relevance. This article explains how six high school teachers developed an interconnected, interdisciplinary STEM-focused PBL called "Sculpting the Barnyard Gene Pool." The…

This article describes how the authors began a science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) collaboration and completed three projects of varying complexity in their art and chemistry classrooms. The projects align with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013).

"Mechanics" is a branch of engineering and physics that deals with forces and motion, and its fundamental principles apply to all objects, whether a bouncing ball, flowing stream, bicycle, or the human body. The field of "biomechanics" applies mechanics concepts specifically to the bodies of humans (and other animals).…

Inspired by a song to be sung by her daughter's first-grade class in an upcoming musical, a parent volunteer teacher used fireflies as the focus of a science lesson to build on the children's interest and experiences. She developed a 5E lesson (Bybee et al. 2006) using the backwards-design approach (Wiggins and McTighe 2005) to ensure meaningful…

Science teaching continues to move away from teaching science as merely a body of facts and figures to be memorized to a process of exploring and drawing conclusions. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize eight science and engineering practices that ask students to apply scientific and engineering reasoning and explanation. This…

Anatomy teaching, once thought of as being the cornerstone of medical education, has undergone much change in the recent years. There is now growing concern for falling standards in medical graduates' anatomical knowledge, coupled with a reduction in teaching time and appropriately qualified teaching staff. With limited contact hours available to…

Educational discourse, particularly since the advent of recent educational reform initiatives, has become saturated with a discourse of "high expectations." One can hardly hope to hold a conversation regarding the problems facing American schools without someone innocently remarking that of course students need to be held to "high…