Author: Diane Ravitch Publisher: Brookings Institution Press ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Examines the idea of national standards and assesssments in American education; reviews evidence about student achievement in the United States; and analyzes the prospects for a national system of standards and assessments.
Author: Morgan Polikoff Publisher: Harvard Education Press ISBN: 9781682536124 Category : Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
Beyond Standards highlights the structural conditions that have undermined the success of the standards movement and challenges us to confront them. The book offers an impassioned argument about the ways that our decentralized educational systems undermine the pursuit of educational equity and excellence. Morgan Polikoff applies a wide array of quantitative and qualitative data to provide a pointed critique of the US educational system. He addresses why standards have failed, whether standards-based reform can be salvaged, and what we can do to improve teaching and learning at scale across America's 13,000 school districts. Polikoff argues that no amount of tinkering can fix standards. Rather, we need to tackle the big, structural issues, such as decentralization. The author identifies curriculum reform as a high-leverage strategy for making meaningful progress at scale and emphasizes that states need to play a greater role in evaluating and recommending high-quality curriculum materials. Beyond Standards proposes a new, progressive vision that emphasizes the central role of states in challenging the antiquated, segregating structures that have thwarted educational improvement.
Author: National Council on Education Standards and Testing (U.S.) Publisher: Department of Education ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 156
Book Description
Recommendations by the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST) are provided concerning whether national standards and a system of assessments are desirable and feasible and how national standards and a system of assessments are to be developed and implemented. The NCEST found that the absence of explicit national standards keyed to world-class levels of performance severely hampers the ability to monitor the nation's progress toward the six national education goals. Without well-defined and demanding standards, American education has gravitated toward "de facto" national minimum expectations, with curricula focusing on low-level reading and arithmetic skills and on small amounts of factual material in other content areas. Most current assessment methods cannot determine if students are acquiring the skills/knowledge they need to prosper in the future. These assessments reinforce the emphasis on low-level skills and processing bits of data rather than on problem solving and critical thinking. It is concluded that high national education standards and a voluntary linked system of assessments are desirable and feasible mechanisms for raising expectations, revitalizing instruction, and rejuvenating education reform efforts for all American schools and students. The NCEST will work toward local commitment to high national expectation for achievement for all students, and toward developing Federal, state, and local policies that ensure high quality resources (instructional materials and well-prepared teachers). Acknowledgments; authorization for the NCEST; public comments; the six national education goals; and reports of the standards, assessment, implementation, English, mathematics, science, history, and geography task forces of the NCEST are appended. (RLC)
Author: Gary Orfield Publisher: ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
More and more states require students to pass large-scale tests as a condition of promotion or graduation. What forces have pushed high-stakes testing to the forefront of educational policy? Are such tests the best way to gauge educational attainment? This book examines the economic and educational assumptions underlying the call for high-stakes tests.
Author: Publisher: DIANE Publishing ISBN: 156806683X Category : Languages : en Pages : 151
Book Description
Discusses whether national standards and a system of assessment are desirable for American education, whether it is feasible to develop them, and how they are to be developed and implemented.
Author: Joel I. Klein Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations ISBN: 087609521X Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 120
Book Description
The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.
Author: Linda Darling-hammond Publisher: Westview Press ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
"A License to Teach" speaks directly to the quality-of-education debate now focused on public schools. The authors show that reform of teacher education and licensing are needed to ensure that teachers are prepared for the classroom. A well-conceived licensing system that supports high-quality teacher preparation would ultimately support the more demanding learning goals now expected of students and would give parents and policymakers greater confidence that teachers are being prepared to practice their profession responsibly.
Author: Deborah Meier Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 9780807004418 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 110
Book Description
Somewhere. . . there is a place of sanity where education is intense and substantive. . . . It's in that place that Deborah Meier has been working all these years. Her voice conveys a life of struggle in the front lines-victories and losses, hopes and disappointments. . . . It's a voice our nation needs to hear. --Jonathan Kozol, from the Foreword Acclaimed educator Deborah Meier offers a fresh take on standardized tests. While others have criticized standards and what they measure, Meier rejects the very idea of a centralized authority that dictates how and what teachers teach. Standardization, she argues, prevents citizens-including teachers-from emerging as thoughtful, responsible adults, seriously engaged with shaping their own schools, classrooms, and communities. As a result, young people can't learn from them how to be thoughtful, responsible adults and good citizens, the primary goal of public education in a democracy. The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. "A civic treasure. . . . A truly good idea, carried out with intelligence and panache." --Robert Pinsky
Author: Tom Loveless Publisher: ISBN: 9781682535912 Category : Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Between the State and the Schoolhouse examines the Common Core State Standards from the initiative's promising beginnings to its disappointing outcomes. Situating the standards in the long history of state and federal efforts to shape education, the book describes a series of critical lessons that highlight the political and structural challenges of large-scale, top-down reforms. Education policy expert Tom Loveless argues that there are too many layers between the state and the classroom for a national standards approach to be effective. Specifically, he emphasizes the significant gap between states' roles in designing education policy and teachers' roles as implementers of policy. In addition, he asserts that top-down policies are unpredictable, subject to political and ideological pressures, and vulnerable to the pendulum effect as new reforms emerge in response to previous ones. One of the most ambitious education reforms of the past century, the Common Core aimed to raise student success, prepare larger numbers of students for both college and careers, and close achievement gaps. Yet, as Loveless documents, a decade later there remains a lack of significant positive impact on student learning. Between the State and the Schoolhouse marks an important contribution to the debate over the standards movement and the role of federal and state governments in education reform.
Author: Diane Ravitch
Author: Morgan Polikoff
Author: Paul Black
Author: National Council on Education Standards and Testing (U.S.)
Author: Gary Orfield
Author: 
Author: Joel I. Klein
Author: Linda Darling-hammond
Author: Deborah Meier
Author: Tom Loveless