Rapid adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, and backlash around these policies created widespread uncertainty among state educational agencies (SEAs). SEAs may have not had a clear direction about how to support standards implementation in a new context, and therefore, may have looked to their…

Since the adoption of CCSS by 43 states, there has been growing concern regarding teacher training and preparation of state standards for students with disabilities. Through a better understanding of the kinds of support and training needed for teachers to apply the CCSS, the educational system may offer students with disabilities the experience…

Rhode Island's School Accountability system is in a period of transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The accountability data released October 2017 is based on the 2016-17 administration of the PARCC assessment. Results from the Multi-State Alternate Assessment in ELA/literacy and mathematics are also included. The results of this…

This qualitative study explored educators' sense making of and responses to No Child Left Behind and the Common Core State Standards at one urban Expeditionary Learning middle school. Sense-making theory (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002) and inquiry as stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) were used as complementary conceptual frameworks…

The past three decades in mathematics education policy and research have seen a considerable focus on algebra and its place in secondary schools. Access to and success in the first high school course, most often termed Algebra I, has been framed as a civil rights issue, a harbinger of college success, and a lynchpin to global competitiveness.…

This report provides the historical background and interpretive analysis needed to understand controversies surrounding Common Core and its associated tests. In this report, Williamson M. Evers presents a revised and expanded version of his expert report for "Jindal v. United States Department of Education et al.," No. 14-CV- 534 (M.D.…

The purpose of this qualitative study was three-fold. First, the purpose was to identify instructional strategies implemented by a virtual public high school to serve students with disabilities. Second, the purpose of this study was to show how the curriculum for students with disabilities developed in a virtual public school in a southeastern…

This article provides an analysis of the rise of 'scientific management' and 'social efficiency' theories in the early 1900s, traces their impact on the structure and administration of education systems, and critically analyses their contribution to the emergence of a new orthodoxy--outcomes-based education (OBE) approaches to school curriculum…

The current rationale for standards-based reform goes like this: If standards are demanding and tests accurately measure achievement of those standards, then curriculum and instruction will become richer and more rigorous. By attaching serious consequences to schools that fail to increase test scores, U.S. policymakers believe that educators will…