In this article, Steenken conveys some thoughts about when parents and our citizenry will believe that today's students know mathematics. It will be when students have significant Quantitative Literacy (QL) skills as set forth in AMATYC's new standards, Beyond Crossroads. He supports the strong call for QL to be embedded across all curricula and…

The authors discuss the impact of standards and testing on curriculum and instruction. They begin with a brief history of the growth and development of academic standards and high-stakes testing. Next, they review relevant research on the impact high-stakes testing has had on curriculum and instruction and discuss ways that high-stakes testing has…

The author, director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, tackles the following question: Should the United States have national standards with teeth, that is, a single set of standards tied to assessments and agreed to by the states? Proponents advance five main arguments for implementing such a standard. In his rebuttal, the…

Accountability is a concept that is well suited to the marketplace and a market-driven society, and it is appropriate when one wants to acquire a product made or sold by someone else. This commodification model is less effective when people pay for a service, rather than a product. The model becomes even more problematic when it is applied to…

All public schools are required to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in order to avoid stiff penalties, per the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. This presents a unique challenge for comprehensive career and technical (CTE) schools. While there is an emphasis on the CTE path that students are interested in pursuing, academic areas must be…

Student mobility often is perceived as a relatively well-documented growth trend of a phenomenon mostly viewed a highly desirable. A closer look, however, suggests that information is shaky in many respects and does not confirm consistent growth according to various criteria and measures. The purposes of mobility vary and also the respective…

This article summarizes the similarities and differences in grade-level learning expectations for fourth grade as described in state curriculum standards. (Contains 3 tables.)

There are a number of reform initiatives underway in Turkey but some of these, which are concerned with curricular and structural changes, have encountered serious difficulties. This paper begins with a brief summary of school effectiveness and school improvement research guiding many educational reforms. It then gives some information about…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 allows states to assess students with "significant cognitive disabilities" on "alternative content standards" for determining adequate yearly progress. Alternative standards that align with regular content standards can allow for a continuum of performance expectations from very basic to…

In 1983, the U.S. Department of Education report, "A Nation at Risk," found that about 13 percent of 17-year-olds were functionally illiterate, SAT scores were dropping, and students needed an increased array of remedial courses in college. Such trends threatened opportunities for American children and the collective national future.…

In 2003 the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations allowing states to develop alternate standards and assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This study reviews and summarizes alternate assessment policies and practices--and their implementation and impact--for the most significantly cognitively…

Researchers have labeled today's college students as perceiving themselves to be more entitled than ever before (J. M. Twenge, 2006). The results of the present study suggest that this may be true for college men, in particular, because they report significantly more academic entitlement than women do. In Study 1, the present authors used survey…

This paper presents a framework of approaches to sharing meaningful knowledge of assessment standards amongst an academic community, particularly students. Presented as a nested hierarchy, these approaches encompass: a "laissez faire" approach in which students' knowledge of standards is acquired in ad hoc and serendipitous ways; an…

The standards movement arrived in the mid-1980s and new curriculum frameworks of instruction were crafted for the reform of science and mathematics curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for teachers. Today, the warning calls about science and mathematics education, the fading STEM (science, technology, engineering, and…

Researchers have been documenting the unfortunate status of social studies in the elementary classroom since the 1980s (J. Stark 1987), and although a lack of teacher interest, poor instructional methods, and the No Child Left Behind Act may be the current contributing factors, these factors should be viewed as just the tip of the iceberg. The…