The foundations of high stakes testing indicate that their intention is to formulate change that is traceable and transparent. Accountability is essential to outcomes but instruction must be aligned to the needs of students and educators and most importantly must be inclusive of the perceptions and perceived needs of real life classroom teachers. Tracing the effectiveness of high stakes reforms and reforms that would be considered the fall out of

These include: question/answer, lecture, demonstration, discussion, individual student projects, laboratory, technological activities, and supervised practice. Previous research has demonstrated that the use of informal knowledge, real world settings and opportunities to apply mathematical thinking are effective instruction methods for introductory algebra. For this reason, instructional factors are related to achievement in algebra (p. 102). When comparing the test scores from Japan and the United States, House and Telese (2008) found

Education Apex Middle School, part of the wake county public school system in Raleigh, NC has implemented a rigorous curriculum for grades 6, 7 and 8. The curriculum for Apex Middle School includes the following: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Computer Education, Health and Physical Education (Wake, 2003). The objectives of each of these programs are stated below. The Apex Middle School curriculum and objectives outlined in this paper are

The Title I reading instructor will become familiar with the Plato Learning content library. The Title 1 reading instructor will begin supplementing classroom instruction with the mini classroom lab using software from Plato Learning. Title I reading instructor will assess classroom performance and modify lab use accordingly. The STAR Reading test results will be evaluated. Survey results on student attitudes towards reading and learning will be compared to April 2007 results. The state standard scores

24). In order to speak specifically to grade level, the process standards were broken down by grade spans. The middle school grades were represented by standards 5-8, as these are commonly the grades that represent middle school. This presentation of process standards specifically presented by grade levels were called content standards. These were updated in 2000 as well. The 1989 content standards included the following ten standards: number and number

Mathematics Textbooks Technology used in Mathematics Textbooks Mathematics probably frustrates more students than any other subject in their course load. It seems that a logical, left brain is something that must be inborn and many students are not gifted with that natural ability. This means that there need to be some simple methods by which every student can be made to understand mathematical concepts. While many different teaching methods have been attempted