The following sites and links reflect the widespread and varied concern to raise educational standards in our nation's schools. School reforms present many challenges to teachers, challenges that require dedication, collaboration, and creativity. These sites offer hope for such solutions.

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Developing Educational Standards By Subject and By State Teaching for High Standards: What Policymakers Need to Know and Be Able to Do What teachers know and can do is crucial to what students learn. Executive Summary: Breaking Ranks II A follow-up to the 1996 seminal report Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution, Breaking Ranks II engages principals, teacher leaders, and the entire school community in reforming the American high school into an academically rigorous, personalized learning environment that is improved through collaborative leadership. PROMISING FUTURES: A Call To Improve Learning For……… Maine's Secondary Students Promising Futures is not a menu of mandates. Instead, it is intended to stimulate discussion and action in every school district in Maine so that every one of our teenagers will leave school prepared for his or her own promising future. The Education Equality Project Public education must change if it is serve the 21st Century needs of Hispanic and black students. Revisioning Professional Development: What Learner-Centered Professional Development Looks Like A report of the National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching Community-Based Learning: A Foundation for Meaningful Educational Reform Many of today's leaders in education, business, and community development are coming to realize, even more than in the past, that schools alone cannot prepare our youth for productive adulthood. These leaders are ready to try new approaches that link learning activities in classrooms with a full range of learning experiences available in our communities. Beyond No Child Left Behind (NCLB) "...how the standards-tests punishment machine has subverted public schools from their democratic promise. With action, we can write a future where education isn't a soulless profit machine for the few." After NCLB: Back to the Basics of Inquiry and Comprehension After an extended and painful educational Dark Age, the USA is about to return to the crucial learning required by a healthy democracy: inquiry-based with a focus on strong comprehension and a curriculum richly and broadly defined. Faking Reform According to a new study, test score fakery is getting worse! States that were gaming the system a few years ago and creating fraudulent improvements in student results have improved their skills and actually widened the gap between results on their own tests and comparable result on the national tests. NoChildLeft.Com Articles Articles and Editorials Outlining the Case Against NCLB Power Learning An on-line book with implications for all subjects as we shift from "smokestack schools" to "Power Learning" The Challenge of School Reform Excellent, challenging article! National School Reform Faculty At the heart of NSRF’s program are the concepts of Facilitative Leadership and Critical Friendship. Building Professional Learning Communities Here’s a look at the tremendous variety of work taking place in the Greater Los Angeles Area. Evolving Glossary of Key Terms The list of terms represents an effort to begin to pin down some key terms that are shaping the language of current school reform efforts throughout the nation. Five Trends for Schools From roller-coaster enrollments to a multiplicity of languages, schools face change. Engaging the Whole Child James L. Hymes Jr. defines a good school as one that helps children “develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.” Synthesis of Research / Small Schools: A Reform That Works Numerous studies confirm that small schools lead to improved student achievement and enable educators to realize many of the other goals of school reform. CRESPAR - Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At-Risk Technical Reports The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought? by John Taylor Gatto, former "Teacher of the Year" in New York and NYC Could They Really Have Done it on Purpose? Are the schools purposively "dumbed down"? Education Numerous eye- and mind-opening articles! CER's EDUCATION REFORM PAGE FOR TEACHERS A conservative, well-designed site with superb resources. Turning Low-Performing Schools into High-Performing Learning Communities: Critical Lessons in School Reform Includes a comprehensive look at professional development, school and classroom practices, student academic achievement, as well as the creation and use of procedural knowledge in school reform. CATALOG of SCHOOL REFORM MODELS Numerous efforts are now being used to embody reform theories and initiatives. The PAEDIA School An active learning design focusing on teaching for thinking! THINK TANKS: Catalysts for Reform Most Ed Reform policies and ideas get formulated in one of these. CHARTER SCHOOLS A format for reform with support from all sides of the political spectrum. SMALL SCHOOLS BY CHOICE "Small is Beautiful" INFORMAL EDUCATION Teaching in the context of real life WALDORF EDUCATION Using creativity and the arts to teach subject matter DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING A well-researched framework for curriculum reorganization and reform based on learning CLOSING THE GAP FOR "AT-RISK" STUDENTS Prepared teachers, higher standards and expectations, and reformed curriculum overcome socio-economic disadvantages! NEW HORIZONS FOR LEARNING Magnificent site, well organized and rich in insights for educational reform and REDESIGN for the 21st Century THE STATE OF THE STATES Executive Summary of an Education Week Special Report--shows need for reform: "50 states riddled with excellence but rife with mediocrity." Eyeopening! AN EDUCATOR'S GUIDE TO SCHOOLWIDE REFORM 1999 report comparing 24 reform approaches STYLES OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM Positive and visionary look at reform choices LAUNCH TO POLICY & REFORM MOVEMENTS Nine well-selected sites GAPS BETWEEN RICH AND POOR SCHOOLS ON MCAS This GAP is real, despite flimsy case made on few exceptions that it isn't crucial. THE COALITION OF ESSENTIAL SCHOOLS Pay special note to the "Horace" and "Exhibitions and School Design"/Digital Portfolio articles under Publications at this site. THE ANNENBURG INSTITUTE FOR SCHOOL REFORM Well organized and resource-rich site with many productive leads STANDARDS IN ACTION Site to see Model Lessons/Units matched to frameworks PATHWAYS TO SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT Topics, Goals, Standards, Curriculum, Safe Schools, Teaching, Learning, Assessment & Professional Development Putnam Valley DEVELOPING EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS Standards by states, subject areas, and national centers ERIC SITES Links to all Eric sites and resources on an extensive array of topics ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL BASED MANAGEMENT What works and what doesn't in shared decision making, etc. SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH SERIES An awesome collection of research summaries on virtually every key topic in education RESOURCES ON EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS Extensive, high quality links! THE MIDDLEWEB Reform resources and superb links for middle school education (grades 5-9) NEW AMERICAN SCHOOLS National project to support model designs in school reform THE MODERN RED SCHOOLHOUSE An effective model based on SAT Advanced Placement standards and educational technology PURPOSE-CENTERED EDUCATION: THE AUDREY COHEN SCHOOL MODEL Personal and social purpose setting by students forms basis of project course work EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY: TOP TEN WEB SITES Technology used in best, purposeful contexts National Academies Press: Education Resources and articles on intelligent use of technology in school reform MASS. DEPT. OF ED.--ED. REFORM Curriculum Frameworks and other resources in a well-organized site IN-SITES FOR INCLUSION SUCCESS A work-in-progress site of the best inclusion approaches and understandings IN-SITES for BRAIN-COMPATIBLE LEARNING Revolutionary implications from cognitive neuro-science CLASS-Center on Learning, ASSESSMENT, and School Structure No area of education more needs reform than testing, and THIS is an awesome resource! IN-SITES FOR DEVELOPING HABITS OF MIND Links to support developing creative/critical habits of mind MCAS--Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System Informative site on new frameworks-linked testing program in Mass. TEACHER/PATHFINDER: ASSESSMENT Broad range of assessment reform sites; SUPERB! WHAT RESEARCH SAYS ABOUT STUDENT ASSESSMENT Summary of research on most promising practices, particularly Vermont's and Kentucky's Portfolio systems, and their superior results ASSESSMENT MATTERS! Resources for assessment reform in each discipline and dimension Teaching to Academic Standards Answers basic concerns from a pro-standards viewpoint IN-SITES FOR PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING Realistic (fuzzy, messy) problems leading to higher order thinking, collaboration, communication, and content/skill learning while addressing curriculum frameworks IN-SITES for LEADERSHIP Extensive links for a broad, deep exploration of the crucial dimension of leadership in educational reform and effective schools TEACHING for RESILIENCY Helping students bounce back from personal and social setbacks and disadvantages SAFE SCHOOLS School Violence: Let's get it OUT of our system. Exemplars Exemplars pioneered the field of performance assessment tasks that meet national standards to improve assessment and instruction.

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