Foreign Currency Exchange is the largest business in the world. The New York Institute of Finance estimates that somewhere around 1.5 trillion dollars changes hands every 24 hours. The trading of international currencies has made overnight millionaires. No other marketplace in the world can give a person more significant opportunity to make money…

The study of the social sciences includes: history, civics, geography, and economics to prepare students for responsible citizenship. The Oregon state standards for social sciences sets out common curriculum goals, content standards, information for Benchmark 1 (grade three), Benchmark 2 (grade five), Benchmark 3 (grade eight), and Certificate of…

This booklet highlights instructive work and experiences from four demonstration charter schools in Chicago that have developed unique, mission-based accountability measures for their performance contracts with the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees. These schools developed their new accountability measures between June 1998 and January 2000.…

This booklet helps teachers understand how to increase student motivation and interest and how to design lively, creative, and interactive lessons that will enrich learning. Chapter 1, "The Differences That Impact Learning," describes the differentiated classroom and provides teachers with an understanding of the many variations of how…

This report discusses challenges states face in working to increase the pace of reforms in standards, testing, and accountability and to ensure that tests are aligned with state standards and provide coherent information about student performance. It emphasizes challenges in turning around low-performing schools, including clearly identifying such…

The Vermont Institute for Science, Math, and Technology (VISMT) and a team of Vermont educators have developed the Vermont Science Assessment in collaboration with CTB/McGraw-Hill. This assessment provides Vermont teachers and school officials with student performance data on scientific understanding as they implement Vermont's Framework of…

This digest in Spanish offers a snapshot of the standards movement: its origins, the definitions of standards and which ones matter, its successes at the district and state levels, the backlash against the movement, and possible policy directions. While a broad coalition of constituencies has embraced standards-based reform as a means of improving…

To collect baseline data about how K-12 standards were being implemented in North Dakota, a standards implementation survey was sent electronically to all school plants and to curriculum leaders across the state in the spring of 2002. Responses were received from 253 teachers, administrators, and curriculum coordinators representing approximately…

This video is one of a four-part series which is designed to introduce teachers and parents to standards and teaching in a standards-based environment, and aims to help teachers and parents understand how teaching with standards can change classrooms, work assignments, and student performance. This video, "A Parent's Primer," demonstrates what…

Nearly every state is engaged in what is generally being called standards-based reform, the development of statewide academic goals and guidelines in core subjects, with new state tests that will measure students progress toward these goals. The first chapter of this report describes how the Study Group on Statewide Assessment of the National…

Florida's 113 charter schools serve 18,255 students and provide opportunities for education innovation and school choice. Many serve at-risk and low-income students. Schools report positive student progress but need stronger accountability. Two-thirds of charter schools are not subject to Florida's A+ school accountability system because they…

This report provides a detailed overview of public-school accreditation in Mississippi. It opens with a short history of accreditation, which began in the 1890s. Early efforts were organized around the University of Mississippi, which had formulated programs of study that would prepare high-school students for college. These efforts evolved into a…

This paper considers the history and purposes of accreditation in the United States, examines its basic elements, and notes its tendency to encompass ever-increasing geographic areas. It contrasts those with the experience of Uruguay within MERCOSUR and its history of accreditation. In order to make this comparison across both regions, the focus…

The National Science Education Standards (NSES) provides few resources for teaching about plants. To assure students understand and appreciate plants, the author advocates teaching about plants as a basic biological concept, avoiding animal chauvinism in biology coursework, correcting pseudoscience and anthropomorphisms about plants, and making…

This paper presents the position of the Organization of History Teachers (OHT) regarding the development of national history standards by the National Standards Project. The OHT position suggests that the Project should recognize that standards aiming for excellence in precollege history teaching require changes in the education of teachers, the…