A core group of dedicated educators will develop the standards, assessments, and curriculum which are the backbone of this initiative, and in the process become experts themselves. This core group will then form a natural group of mentors for other teachers who were unable or unwilling to participate in the development phase of the project. The success of this project depends on working groups. These are small groups of educators working on specific tasks. They are not commit-tees.
Committees decide things.
Working groups produce things. This diverse membership should ensure that articulation is an integral part of the development process and that the end products are acceptable to everyone in the Japanese language community. If you have comments or questions on their work, please contact Carl Falsgraf or one of the group's members. Each member of these groups is giving tremen-dous amounts of time and energy to create world class standards, assessments, and curricula for all of us. The theory behind standards based school reform is that if we set high standards, teachers and students will figure out some way to meet them.