Standards and School Reform
While standardized testing has been in use in U.S. education for decades, until recently, it was most often used for special purposes, such as college entrance: the SATs, and the GREs for graduate school and so on. IQ testing had been part of the educational landscape, also. However, it was only after 1983's government-backed report that found American children at educational risk that standards became the main tool for establishing educational goals and determining whether they had been met. Unfortunately, this thrust produced not better educated children, but rather greater insistence on more standards and more testing until, by the advent of No Child Left Behind, the standards left almost no leeway for teachers to educate children, but rather simply to prepare them to do well on lowest-common-denominator sorts of tests. Conceivably, adding a humanizing element, such as service teaching, can help mitigate some of the ill effects of testing run amok.
In the era of No Child Left Behind, a program even a cursory reading of the popular press will reveal as a misdirected, underfunded, and thoroughly detested effort by the Bush administration to improve education, it is tempting to throw out all standards in educational practice. However, it might be better to attempt to find some standards that are effective and examine why. Alternatively, if none can be found that are effective, again, it would be better to discover the reasons for the failure of standards in school reform.
Foss and LeMahieu (1994) compared treating standards as a freestanding component of school reform to walking in the woods, picking up a fallen branch, and failing to notice that it was connected to all other things in the woods: the trees, the root system, the ground, as well as the sky, the birds flying through the treetops, and so on. Likewise, they point out that it is unreasonable and unworkable to treat standards as sufficient in itself to accomplish school reform. Rather, it should be taken as a component of many initiatives directed at school reform. In context, they point out, standards can play a significant role.
The problem arises when localities' educational administrators promulgate standards and...
Interestingly, this creation of "standards" began as a state effort, with each state creating its own standards for education, according to what was considered important for schools by citizens in each specific state. Challenges regarding consistency were therefore part and parcel of the standards issue to begin with. Later, a movement was established to create more common standards. The historical ideal behind content standards is that they draw on relevant
School Culture on School Safety Many studies have been done on safety in schools. Likewise, many studies have been done on the culture of various schools. Unfortunately, there has not been significant research on a link between the two. This is not to say that these kinds of studies have not been done, but rather that there has not been enough of them. Many of the studies that have been
Moseley, chair of the Coalition advisory board and president and CEO of the Academy for Educational Development. "It is not a luxury that can be addressed at some point in the future, but rather it provides people with the tools to survive and improve their lives" (Basic Education Coalition 2004). There is no one magical, quick fix solution to Bermuda's dropout problem. The problem is complex and requires a
The Court then obliged schools to take steps to overcome language barriers in order to give all children equal access to the curriculum. This was endorsed by the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1974. None of the implemented laws require a specific methodology for instruction in schools, but civil rights laws do require that all children receive equal opportunities. Specifically, this requirement is enforced by the further requirements of theoretically
Some of those are as follows: 1) Affect the environment; 2) Either save or expend energy; 3) Economically feasible or expensive to maintain, heat and cool. 4) Affect student learning; 5) Affect the health of students and teachers alike and 6) Affect the retention of teachers. (Olson and Carney, 2004) Criteria involved in the design, operation and maintenance of these 'sustainable' buildings are those as follows: Sustainable site planning and landscaping design that decrease the use
Elementary Music School Programs Music Programs Music programs in elementary schools are sometimes viewed as discretionary. The scope of curricula seems to grow increasingly broader and deeper with each passing year, and the pressure to meet learning standards is tremendous. Instruction that does not have a direct influence on student and school performance is viewed as optional -- a nice program to have if the school can afford it and if
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