In this excerpt from How to educate an American: The conservative vision for tomorrow's schools, William J. Bennett argues that instilling knowledge, not just skills, is an important element of good schooling. In fact, developing certain skills actually requires a considerable amount of background knowledge. He offers examples of states that have…

This document from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) provides guidance on initial steps for how educators can plan and prepare for addressing knowledge gaps due to extended remote learning as a result of the COVID-19 emergency. The purpose of Stage One is for grade-level or course content teams to: (1) Analyze their 2019-2020 curriculum…

Today's state literacy standards and assessments demand deeper levels of knowledge from students. But many teachers ask, "What does depth of knowledge look like on these new, more rigorous assessments? How do we prepare students for this kind of thinking?" In this article, Nancy Boyles uses a sampling of questions from the PARCC and SBAC…

The Civics Education Initiative is a project of the Joe Foss Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to shaping "young Americans for civic engagement as voters and informed members of their community." The three-year initiative, which launched in September 2015 and concludes in September 2017, has three goals: (1) To ensure students graduate…

Social and emotional learning, or SEL, involves the processes through which individuals acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage their emotions, feel and show empathy for others, establish and achieve positive goals, develop and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible…

This study was relational, non-experimental, explanatory, and cross-sectional in nature, using quantitative methods to explain the influence of student, staff, and school independent variables on 6th, 7th , and 8th grade student achievement in both Language Arts and Mathematics on the 2011 NJ ASK. The variable of interest was the length of the…

The National Reading Panel (NRP) identified five pillars, or essential components, of reading instruction that lead to the highest chance of reading success--phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. A decade after the NRP's report, the majority of US states adopted the Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts…

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact that professional learning communities (PLCs) have on student achievement. Through this study, the statewide performance results of a school district that implemented PLCs were examined. This study of an Illinois school district's statewide assessment results served as a foundation for further…

This issue brief was written to assist state policymakers in better understanding how social and emotional learning (SEL) can help students to be college and career ready. The brief provides a short description of what SEL is, why it is needed, and what it looks like in practice. In addition, examples of standards that support SEL at the federal…

The "English Standards of Learning Enhanced Scope and Sequence" for grades 6-8 is a resource intended to help teachers align their classroom instruction with the content found in "English Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools," adopted by the Board of Education in November 2002. The Enhanced Scope and Sequence…

The ultimate purpose of the language arts standards presented in this document is to ensure that all students be offered the opportunities, the encouragement, and the vision to develop the language skills they need to pursue lifelong goals, including finding personal enrichment and participating as informed members of society. The language arts…

These outlines of core curriculum outcomes for elementary social studies in grades K-3 in Michigan include each of the following areas for each grade level: core curriculum knowledge outcomes, core curriculum skill outcomes, core curriculum democratic values outcomes, and core curriculum civic participation outcomes. For each individual outcome…