Created by teachers for teachers, the Math Academy tools and activities included in this booklet were designed to create hands-on activities and a fun learning environment for the teaching of mathematics to the students. This booklet contains the "Math Academy--Play Ball! Explorations in Data Analysis & Statistics," which teachers can use to…

Teacher certification/licensure requirements across the United States are in constant flux. Career and technical education (CTE), with its many subject disciplines, has historically had two pathways to certification/licensure: a traditional degree-based program of courses, field experiences, and exit exams, and an alternative pathway based…

In Spring 2006 California released its first ever school-level Academic Performance Index (API) scores for English Learners (ELs). These EL-API scores were based on California Standards Tests in English language arts and math taken in the spring of 2005. The new EL-API data make it clear that elementary schools vary widely in their ability to get…

Teaching mathematics in today's world requires practices and procedures integrated with performance tasks that actively involve students. In this second edition of Designing Rubrics for Mathematics, Eileen Depka clarifies the purpose of rubrics in math instruction and illustrates the relationship between assessment, rubrics, and the National…

Flexibility and accountability are two levers for change that occupy an increasingly prominent place among federal strategies for educational improvement. In return for introducing higher academic standards and performance-based accountability systems, states and districts have been granted increasing flexibility over how they may use the funding…

This study provides a complete review of discussion and development leading up to the current trends in Deaf Studies curriculum development, and also analyzes existing known curriculum (or curriculum-like) materials to help inform development of an ideal standards-based Deaf Studies curriculum. The common shared arguments identified in this…

Society's pervasive negative attitude about disability--which the author terms ableism--often makes the world an unwelcoming and inaccessible place for disabled people. An abelist perspective asserts that it is preferable for a child to read print rather than Braille, walk rather than use a wheelchair, spell independently rather than use a…

In this article, the author states that gifted student population is itself diverse, with variability in intensity, maturity, risk-taking, creativity and degree of giftedness, among other traits. Appropriate services are equivalent to a life preserver; the opportunity to spend time with others who are sufficiently similar in ability, interests and…

Academic sociologists have recently increased their focus on improving high school sociology. Reform efforts include networking between teachers and universities, improving curriculum, and enhancing teacher training. I propose that this list be expanded to include setting curricular standards. Current trends in educational reform center on…

Whatever has happened to using teacher observation as an approach to assess student achievement? Presently, the emphasis is upon state mandated testing to ascertain student progress. Much is written in educational journals about having students achieve No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal and state standards, signed into law in 2002. Much drill is…

This issue of the Center's "Systems Newsletter" will be the last one published under the aegis of Dr. JoyceVanTassel-Baska, the Center's founder and current Executive Director. As of this August Dr. VanTassel-Baska will officially retire from the College of William and Mary and the Center. She will still be an integral part of the Center…

This volume contains the 20 standards and indicators against which professional education units (schools, colleges, or departments of education) are evaluated to determine their accreditation status. It also contains salient National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) policies and procedures and an overview of NCATE's…

Many educators believe that if the United States is serious about reforming the nation's educational system, schools must implement high standards for student achievement that stress performance. While there is some disagreement over what form standards should take, there is consensus that expectations for achievement should cut across subject…

On May 18, 1994, a groups of scholars, policymakers, educators, and interested observers met at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., to analyze a relatively new phenomenon in American education--national standards and assessments. The discussion took place a few weeks after Congress enacted Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the Clinton…

This concordance study uses a corpus of applied linguistic articles to explore how and why accomplished academic writers use quotations and citations, specifically the word 'say,' and analyses the lexical and grammatical choices they make. Citations were examined in almost 50,000 words from 11 articles to document use by experts writers. Overuse…