The Council of the Great City Schools, the nation's primary coalition of large urban public school systems, has prepared this report to summarize its recommendations to St. Louis about improving student achievement in its public schools. The project goals included: (1) Review the instructional program of the St. Louis schools, the unit's…

This document defines what students should know and be able to do in order to be environmentally literate. It is a guide for building a curriculum from pre-kindergarten to adult levels that should enable the learner who has mastered it to make informed environmental decisions. Educators in schools, environmental learning centers, higher education…

The "Preschool Teaching and Learning Expectations: Standards of Quality" sets a standard for preschool learning outcomes and serves as a benchmark for determining how effectively the classroom curriculum is being implemented. It provides the focus for curriculum determination and instruction for all preschool children ages three and…

These official primary trait scoring guide presents details of the 6-point scoring system used in third-grade Oregon schools to evaluate students' performance in oral reading fluency and in comprehension (as measured through retelling). The oral reading fluency benchmark portion of the scoring guide is broken down into phrasing, flow, and pace…

The Concerns Based Acceptance Model (CBAM) has been a key element in developing and assessing the implementation of science and mathematics programs over the past 20 years. CBAM provides an organized approach to assessing where people stand as they learn about, and accept, changes in organizations. This study examined the status of the adoption of…

This study examined the performance of Oregon University System (OUS) students on 10th grade benchmark standards and subsequent performance in their first year of college. Participants, identified using 1999-00 state data from the Oregon Department of Education, included students who participated in state assessment while in high school and…

Elementary education teacher candidates (n=62) proposed four criteria they used to identify a best lesson plan developed and taught for posting to their electronic portfolio. Criteria include a lesson that students enjoyed, learned from, actively participated in, and were involved in conducting research. The two criteria shared by all teacher…

Nevada's five academic standards in theater arts call for certain educational objectives in grades 3 and 5, as well as in middle school and secondary school. Nevada's standards encompass all aspects of theater, from script writing, directing, and production to acting and creative thinking. The standards present performance level descriptors in…

The goal at the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) is to support school efforts to reach excellence--to raise academic expectations and to promote those practices that will help more students reach those expectations. The "Just for the Kids School Information Service" is the process NCEA has created to accomplish this goal in a…

Many discussions of student loan repayment focus on those students for whom repayment is a problem and conclude that the reliance on debt to finance postsecondary education is excessive. However, from both a pragmatic perspective and a logical perspective, a more appropriate approach is to develop different benchmarks for students in different…

Explains that because we want children to be honest, strong-minded, bold, resist peer pressure, and speakout against wrongdoing, protection against hurt must sometimes give way to other priorities. Suggests benchmarks that should be incorporated into decision-making: the act itself, its consequences, the motives, and the personal history of the…

Provides an overview of characteristics among Association of Research Libraries (ARL) physics Web pages. Examines current academic Web literature and from that develops six benchmarks to measure physics Web pages: ease of navigation; logic of presentation; representation of all forms of information; engagement of the discipline; interactivity of…

Examines how benchmarking, a continuous quality improvement process, can be used to define and improve the quality of school-to-work curricula. Provides a set of standards developed by the National Consortium of Product Quality that can be used to guide curriculum review. Describes a six-step benchmarking process. (AJL)

In Australia's National Professional Development Program for teachers, key processes are evaluation, quality, benchmarking, and cost-benefit analysis. Educators in South Australia (SA) are attempting to differentiate between quality assurance in project management and in program evaluation. (SK)

Reviews research and case studies of Internet-based degree programs to gain a better understanding of the impact of information technology on student equity and overall standards of quality. Offers recommendations suggesting that governmental strategies related to online education should be limited in scope and promote two goals: equal opportunity…