Forty-six states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Department of Defense schools have adopted the Common Core State Standards. Adoption was only the first step. Ensuring that the standards will improve student learning will require new assessments, curriculums, instructional materials and resources, and professional development.…

The Common Core initiative calls for implementing fewer, tougher standards for literacy instruction. Seen from a student's perspective, the standards ask a lot in terms of effort and focus. Educators have to ask themselves, How can they motivate students to care enough about what they read and write to put in the hard work necessary to meet these…

Visual literacy is essential for 21st century learners. Across the higher education curriculum, students are being asked to use and produce images and visual media in their academic work, and they must be prepared to do so. The Association of College and Research Libraries has published the "Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher…

Schools are facing many changes in the ways that teaching, learning, and assessment take place. Most states are moving from individual state standards to the new Common Core State Standards, which will be fewer, higher, and more rigorous than most current state standards. As the next generation of assessments used for accountability are rolled…

Research Findings: We are in the midst of a revolution. Prior to the onset of the 21st century, mathematics education in the United States was deemphasized (Geary, 1996), and mathematics as an instructional subject has traditionally been considered above the preschool and kindergarten levels. However, the old regime--the knowledge and philosophies…

Back in 2010, then-elementary school Principal Catherine White focused on writing in the Attleboro (Mass.) Public Schools. And with that, the school's fourth graders beat the state average for long composition on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. White, now a literacy specialist in the Natick (Mass.) Public Schools, looks at that…

This qualitative inquiry investigated the perceptions of the roles of school board presidents and superintendents with regard to governance and administration in select Chicago, Illinois, Suburban School Districts. The selection criteria were school board presidents and school superintendents who hold these positions in several Chicago, Illinois,…

Finding time for job-embedded professional learning is one of the most frequently cited challenges with implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). With "Establishing Time for Professional Learning," practitioners and education leaders use tools to identify current allocations of time for professional learning, analyze how that…

Five hundred and seventeen words from the easyCBM Word Reading assessment (n = 57 kindergarten, 117 first grade, 172 second grade, and 171 third grade) were examined by 15 teachers for their correspondence with the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. In particular, the degree of correspondence between Standard 3 ("Phonics…

The U.S. Department of Education (USED) requires states participating in either of the two Race to the Top assessment consortia (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers [PARCC]), as well as those participating in either of the two Enhanced Assessment Grant (EAG) English language…

This practical book examines how teaching media in high school English and social studies classrooms can address major challenges in our educational system. The authors argue that, in addition to providing underserved youth with access to 21st century learning technologies, critical media education will help improve academic literacy achievement…

The full policy implications of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Mathematics and English Language Arts K-12 are just beginning to unfold across the 45 states (and DC) that are working to implement them. The CCSS will impact almost all key state education policies in fundamental ways. As was learned from the 1990-2005 era of systemic…

This dissertation is a compilation of three separate works representing a wide range of issues related to pre-college engineering. Each work addresses multiple levels of concern for educators from national policy to specific classroom intervention. Although presenting different styles of writing--due to different journals requirements--and various…

Although writing plays an important role in the academic, psychosocial, and economic success of individuals, typical writing instruction and assessment in the United States generally does not reflect evidence-based practices. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) place a great deal of emphasis on written expression and may encourage an increased…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) set a controversial aspirational, quantitative trajectory for text complexity exposure for readers throughout the grades, aiming for all high school graduates to be able to independently read complex college and workplace texts. However, the trajectory standard is presented without reference to how the…