A standards-based exit policy was implemented in an urban district in the northwestern United States. This paper considers the second year of implementation with a group of 2,581 students in the fifth grade. Of these, 104 were identified as not having the skills to exit fifth grade. Reading achievement as measured by two tests, the Iowa Tests of…

Educating students about character development and responsibility can and should be an integral part of the academic curriculum. This collection contains units of study that were written to exemplify some of the many ways that these themes might be taught in preK-12 Massachusetts classrooms. Using the standards of the Massachusetts Curriculum…

The revised North Carolina Standard Course of Study has moved from a detailed, prescriptive curriculum guide to a more flexible instructional guide, emphasizing what students should know and be able to do as they progress through various levels of proficiency and ultimately exit from high school. The revised curriculum focuses on themes and…

Education in the social sciences aims to help students develop as rational, humane, and productive citizens in a democratic society. Four elements of social studies education are necessary to help develop such citizens: knowledge, skills, values, and participation. Both the formal and the informal curriculum should be based on a reasoned…

"Credit" has an increasingly important role to play in recording student achievement and also for providing support for students and their progression both into and within the education system. It is a key tool for promoting lifelong learning. Credit can serve a number of purposes but is fundamentally a tool for assessing the equivalence…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires that all children, including English language learners (ELLs), reach high standards by demonstrating proficiency in English language arts and mathematics by 2014. Schools and districts must help ELL students, among other subgroups, make continuous progress toward this goal, as measured by…

Maine's approach to assessing state standards, the Learning Results, has been to use a combination of state and local measures in building a "comprehensive assessment system." The state test, the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA), was revised in 1999 to align more closely with content standards and performance indicators established in…

Maryland's second phase of school reform, Achievement Matters Most, is being implemented throughout the state. Working together, teachers, parents, and administrators are providing for children a positive and safe environment. The state has in place a new series of assessments, which collect data required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act,…

This document is for all K-12 teachers and others interested in making OSPI's goal of 100% literacy a possibility for their state's citizens. This document will assist teachers who face challenges at all grade levels and aid in celebrating the diversity in every classroom, while also supporting schools as they seek to close the achievement gap…

High school graduation requirements vary from state to state and district to district across the United States. These requirements establish criteria that students must meet in order to obtain diplomas or certificates of completion. An increasingly common graduation requirement is the achievement of a passing score on an exit exam, a practice…

This document, which is a checklist, was designed for use by a state team to conduct a preliminary self-analysis of the state?s system of standards and assessments. The checklist is organized into the following sections: (1) Content Standards; (2) Academic Achievement Standards; (3) Overview of the Statewide Assessment System; (4) Technical…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) partnered with Andrew Porter and John Smithson of Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) to develop an advanced, in depth approach to collecting and reporting data on the "enacted curriculum" in K-12 math and science, i.e. the actual subject content and instructional practices experienced…

After the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into practice, states were required to implement stringent accountability systems including standards-based reform efforts and annual testing of students. Academic content standards define what students should know for each subject at each grade level and annual state assessments assess students'…

Accreditation by professional associations is being challenged and the concept of a system of national examinations for determining accountability is gaining strength. (MS)

Discusses the specific ingredients for leadership and the environments for developing those qualities. (RK)