The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began to take form when dozens of educators from across the country were led by governors and chief state school officers in gathering and reviewing the academic standards of states that had the best outcomes. Their goal was to determine what the current best academic standards were in the country and then…

How important is it that every student in a school is excited about learning? Should a student be allowed to use all his/her strengths in learning? Do you know someone who wasn't a particularly good student but has been very successful in life? What these seemingly unrelated questions have in common is an appreciation for the range of talents that…

Involving two or more academic subjects, interdisciplinary studies aim to blend together broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, and epistemology in an educational setting. By focusing on topics or questions too broad for a single discipline to cover, these studies strive to draw connections between seemingly different fields. Cases on…

An emerging body of research suggests that a set of broad "21st century skills"--such as adaptability, complex communication skills, and the ability to solve non-routine problems--are valuable across a wide range of jobs in the national economy. However, the role of K-12 education in helping students learn these skills is a subject of current…

Discussed is a program that awards money to institutions that want to develop teacher training programs with national significance. Information on how the funds can be used and how the funds are distributed is included. (KR)

Rural school districts must cope with problems of finance, energy, teacher recruitment, and curriculum. The Pawnee Heights School District (Kansas) has dealt with all of these. Concerning finance, Pawnee Heights has taken advantage of several federal programs including CETA, Title I, Career Education, and Title III; it has filed an application for…

A training program that allows scientists and educators to experiment with new ways to improve student performance in science and mathematics is described. Scientists and educators are encouraged to work together to develop projects for in-service education and projects that can be worked on by students in the laboratory. (KR)

This paper discusses ways that students can better be taught to think. It argues that poor/low-achieving students served by Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 could genuinely profit from instruction on thinking and that, for maximum impact, such instruction should be introduced as a course in itself, separate from…

As a result of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and the reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 2004, Response to Intervention (RTI) is now a mandated process for documenting the existence or nonexistence of a learning disability. For educators new to the RTI approach, this text presents an overview of key…

This article argues that the U.S. dissemination system in education is unresponsive to organizational improvement needs, and that development of this bias is exacerbated by political, organizational, and programmatic thrusts in federal agencies. It is suggested that systems in the Netherlands and Denmark could provide useful models for adapting…

The Research and Development Utilization Program (RDU) was intended to apply research and development products to local school problems; to develop a problem-solving and product selection process usable by local schools; and to organize a linkage system making national, state, and other external resources available to local school personnel. The…

The National Council on Educational Research (NCER), and its parent organization, the National Institute of Education (NIE), were established by law in 1972. NCER functions as an advisory arm to NIE, by establishing general policies; recommending programs to strengthen educational research and to disseminate and implement research findings;…

The National Dissemination Leadership Project (NDLP) is a special project of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) funded by the National Institute of Education (NIE). The project provides a secretariate to facilitate communication among state education agencies (SEAs), NIE, and other agencies and individuals concerned with improving…