As an early Common Core booster, Michael Petrilli had hoped that by now--10 years after most states adopted the standards--the nation's schools would have logged tangible improvements in teaching and learning that resulted in higher student achievement. In this article, Petrilli reviews what Common Core is and discusses the work ahead that is…

Education standards do not flop spectacularly. Their failure gives rise to nothing like the black-and-white films of early aeronautical experiments: no missiles exploding on launch pads or planes tumbling from the sky. But 10 years after 46 of the 50 states adopted the Common Core standards, the lack of evidence that they have improved student…

The 10th anniversary of Common Core's launch offers the opportunity to take stock of the impact these nearly national standards have had on student learning, as well as their future prospects. In this article, Morgan Polikoff shares his view that the standards movement in general, and Common Core in particular, have achieved all they are going to…

The Common Core State Standards, released in 2010, were rapidly adopted by more than 40 states. Champions maintained that these rigorous standards would transform American education, but the initiative went on to encounter a bumpy path. A decade on, what are we to make of this ambitious effort? What kind of impact, if any, has it had on the…

In this article, I critique a component of the highly structured Open Court Reading curriculum designed to teach elementary children "inquiry and higher-order thinking" skills. The intended outcome of this component is, I argue, the production of critically literate and informed consumers of information. However, both the critical…

This commentary looks at the contributions and future research implications of the four articles in this Special Issue of "Thinking Skills and Creativity" to the fields of creativity and creativity education, both in culture-specific and culture-general terms. The articles included in this Special Issue draw attention to issues of…

The five papers in this collection consider a range of important issues in relation to the English national curriculum assessment system (NCA). In responding to these articles, Jannette Elwood considers some of the issues the authors have raised generally in relation to a revised English NCA, but also more specifically she considers them from a…

In this essay, we state that establishing technology curricula by national governments causes a shift in the policy actions of educational technology support: from a technical rationale with a main focus on funding and resources to a pedagogical rationale with a main focus on student competencies. We illustrate our point of view by describing the…

Over the past three decades, environmental issues have been on the global forefront and continue to affect people's daily lives. Although the need for environmental attention is at an all-time high, outdoor and environmental education (OEE) plays an insufficient role in school systems. As technology continues to contribute to advancements in every…

While all comparisons are difficult, a consideration of the English national curriculum may offer some insights about the Australian version. In this paper, I suggest that there are some important similarities between the two approaches. I query the stated purposes of the Australian national curriculum and its adoption of a notion of equity which…