ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Lining up: The Relationship between the Common Core State Standards and Five Sets of Comparison Standards
Author: Conley, David T.
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Educational Policy,State Standards,Best Practices,Academic Standards,Alignment (Education),Correlation,Schematic Studies,Skill Analysis,Educational Needs,Educational Improvement,Improvement Programs,Content Analysis,Program Content,Cognitive Objectives,Comparative Analysis,Language Arts,Literacy,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Writing Achievement

In June 2010, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Offices (CCSSO) released the Common Core State Standards. The stated aim of the Common Core standards is to define the knowledge and skills students should achieve in order to graduate from high school ready to succeed in a wide range of postsecondary educational settings (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010a). As of October 2011, 44 states and the District of Columbia had officially adopted the standards. This widespread potential implementation of the Common Core standards has led to interest by states and national organizations regarding the relationship between these new standards and existing systems of standards. Are Common Core standards aligned with the standards states and others have developed over many years? Are they as challenging? Do they cover the same topic areas with the same emphases? To help answer these questions, the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC), designed and conducted this study to determine the extent of correspondence (alignment) between the exit level Common Core standards and each of five sets of existing standards, were explicitly written at the college readiness level, or represented a rigorous instructional program focused on college readiness. The purpose was to see if the Common Core standards cover similar content, how broadly they cover the comparison standards, and how the cognitive challenge level of aligned content matches up. While additional analyses at the individual state level are needed, the overall findings from this study suggest a general level of agreement between the Common Core standards and the comparison standards regarding what is important for high school students to know and be able to do and the cognitive level at which they need to demonstrate key skills in English language arts and mathematics in order to be ready for college and careers. Appended are: (1) Description of the Depth of Knowledge Calculation; (2) Common Core Standards; (3) Results by Individual Comparison Standards; and (4) Alignment Matches for Common Core Content-Specific Areas. (Contains 43 figures, 45 tables and 17 footnotes.)
Crosswalk Analysis of Deeper Learning Skills to Common Core State Standards
Author: Conley, David T.
Date: 2011-07-13
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Educational Policy,Academic Standards,State Standards,Alignment (Education),Skill Analysis,Skill Development,Learning Strategies,Evaluation Methods,Schematic Studies,Behavioral Objectives,Thinking Skills,English Curriculum,Mathematics Curriculum,Content Analysis,Academic Achievement,Educational Improvement,Improvement Programs,Educational Strategies,Comparative Analysis

The Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) conducted a crosswalk between the Deeper Learning Skills (DLS) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The purpose of the crosswalk was to understand the ways in which strategies for deeper learning relate to the CCSS. This comparison was not solely or simply an alignment study, although some elements of content alignment methodology were employed in the first round of reviews. Alignment studies are used to determine matches between sets of standards or between a set of standards and one or more assessments. Because the DLS are not a set of content standards, nor are they an assessment, it is not appropriate to use alignment methodology exclusively when exploring relationships between the DLS and content standard systems such as the CCSS. Overall, findings indicate that the CCSS are a strong foundation for learning and teaching the deeper learning skills as defined by the  Hewlett Foundation. Deeper learning skills were consistently identified as being essential contributors to student mastery of the CCSS, even in areas with less than direct correspondence. Appended are: (1) The Common Core State Standards Included in the Crosswalk; and (2) Crosswalk Analysis of Deeper Learning Skills to Common Core State Standards. (Contains 6 tables and 3 footnotes.) [This paper was prepared for the William H. and Flora Hewlett Foundation.]
Summary Brief: International Baccalaureate Standards Development and Alignment Project
Author: Conley, David T.
Date: 2009-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Thinking Skills,Advanced Placement Programs,Alignment (Education),Academic Standards,College Readiness,Skill Analysis,Skill Development,Curriculum Evaluation,National Standards,Educational Research,Educational Policy,Improvement Programs,Convergent Thinking

Although the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme is offered by many high schools in the United States and considered to be challenging and rich in content, the curriculum has not been analyzed to determine its alignment with college readiness standards or state educational standards in the U.S. The research methodology employed by this project was a professional judgment model often referred to as convergent consensus. It requires the repeated review of documents by experts who make changes at each review stage designed to move toward consensus agreement on a final document that achieves a set of pre-established goals. In this case, the goal was to develop a set of standards that represented the knowledge and skills students learn in the curriculum of the IB Diploma Programme. The results of this study clearly confirm the strong relationship between the IB Diploma Programme and standards for college readiness and success. The IB standards demonstrate a very high degree of alignment with the KSUS standards in all subject areas. In addition, many of the individual IB standards are at a level more advanced than entry-level college courses. Furthermore, the IB standards address key cognitive strategies that are critical to success in entry-level college courses. These key cognitive skill areas are rarely addressed in state content standards but are identified almost universally by college instructors as being central to success in entry-level college courses. These key cognitive skill areas are rarely addressed in state content standards but are identified almost universally by college instructors as being central to success in entry-level college courses. In short, students who participate successfully in IB should be well prepared to succeed in entry-level college general education courses and in some cases to have already learned material covered in such courses. (Contains 1 table.)
Federal and State Funding Flexibility: Targeting Federal Regulatory and Funding Flexibilities for Schools within a Partnership Zone. Meeting the Turnaround Challenge: Strategies, Resources &amp; Tools to Transform a Framework into Practice
Author: Mass Insight Education
Date: 2009-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: School Districts,Financial Support,Federal Legislation,Educational Legislation,Educational Finance,Federal Regulation,State Regulation,Educational Improvement,Partnerships in Education,School Turnaround,Public Schools,Budgets,Grants,School District Autonomy

Most public schools are funded through a combination of local, state, and federal sources. Each funding stream is often accompanied by a host of regulations on how schools and districts can use the funds. Often such regulations can be highly restrictive, limiting the ability of schools to align their budgets with their instructional programs. Given the diverse needs of schools and the fact that budget requirements often change from year-to-year, many school districts and states have advocated for greater flexibility in how to use both federal and state funding. Such flexibility allows for schools to align their programmatic needs with their budgets, rather than simply allocating money for compliance purposes. Flexibility in the use of school budgets is also a critical ingredient to the success of Partnership Zones, as it encourages innovative approaches to school turnaround. This brief provides an overview of some of the ways school districts and states can seek greater funding and regulatory flexibility. Some of the flexibilities discussed below may change with the reauthorization of &quot;No Child Left Behind&quot; and/or new guidance from the U.S. Department of Education. (Contains 7 endnotes.)
Refining Remediation: Support Strategies for At-Risk High School Students in Three Urban Districts. A Report from &quot;The Keep the Promise Initiative&quot;--A Three-Year Longitudinal Study of High School Academic Remediation in Boston, Springfield and Worcester. Fall 2005
Author: Mass Insight Education
Date: 2005-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Academic Achievement,At Risk Students,Accountability,Remedial Instruction,Longitudinal Studies,Public Schools,Program Effectiveness,Academic Standards,State Standards,Student Characteristics,Student Behavior,Curriculum Design,Academic Persistence,School Holding Power,Urban Schools,School Districts

&quot;Refining Remediation&quot; is the fifth installment from the &quot;Keep the Promise&quot; initiative, a three-year research project led by the Mass Insight Education and Research Institute in conjunction with the Boston, Springfield, and Worcester Public Schools. Since 2003, &quot;Keep the Promise&quot; has been investigating school reform's most critical dimension: its success in reaching and serving the students most at risk of leaving high school without the skills required to construct a productive, fulfilling life. &quot;Refining Remediation&quot; provides the most in-depth review ever published of the extraordinary efforts underway in Massachusetts' urban high schools to &quot;keep the promise&quot; to their at-risk students. Just three years ago, common wisdom predicted a &quot;train-wreck&quot; end to the state's experiment with standards and accountability, with unacceptably high failure rates among seniors in the Class of 2003. Remediation strategies such as those examined in this report clearly helped schools, students, and the state to dismiss that gloomy forecast. These investments by the state, and the hard work of educators to create and implement these programs, made passing the first hurdle possible. Without this commitment and follow-through to help the first generation of accountability-era students develop passing-level skills, the entire higher standards reform effort might well have jumped the tracks. On behalf of all of the researchers, writers, advisors, financial underwriters, and educators who helped to produce this report, the authors hope its findings help schools across the Commonwealth improve the ways they serve students most in need of their help--and policymakers to understand and appreciate the impact their investments have had. Sample Research from Mass Insight Education's Building Blocks Initiative for Standards-Based Reform is appended. (Contains 1 chart and 2 footnotes.) [Additional funding for this research was given by Allmerica Foundation, Barr Foundation, John Hancock, and the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation.]
Stepping Backwards: The Fraying of Massachusetts' Commitment to Students at the Front Lines of School Reform. A Policy Report from the &quot;Keep the Promise&quot; Initiative. Volume II, Number 1
Author: Mass Insight Education
Date: 2004-04-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Educational Change,Public Schools,Remedial Instruction,Budgeting,Retrenchment,Academic Support Services,Program Effectiveness,At Risk Students,Achievement Tests,Scores,Early Intervention,Elementary School Students,Middle School Students,High School Students,Federal Legislation,Educational Legislation

The second year of &quot;Keep the Promise&quot; Research--an in-depth, three-year study of academic remediation programs in Massachusetts' three largest school districts--is producing an array of evidence demonstrating the severely negative impact of the Commonwealth's 80% cut in MCAS remediation funding in the F'04 budget. This report--a mid-year, interim publication from the second year of Keep the Promise research--puts specific numbers on the impact of the cuts in Worcester, Springfield, and Boston and describes the qualitative decline of academic support programs as well. The inescapable conclusion is that Massachusetts has taken a significant--but reparable--step backwards in its effort to keep its promises to all of the students served by its public schools. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.) [Additional funding for this research was provided by the State Street Corporation, and John Hancock.]
Teacher Pay-for-Performance in School Turnaround: How Bonuses and Differentiated Pay Scales Can Help Support School Turnaround. Meeting the Turnaround Challenge: Strategies, Resources &amp; Tools to Transform a Framework into Practice
Author: Mass Insight Education
Date: 2009-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Teacher Salaries,Merit Pay,School Turnaround,Disadvantaged Schools,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Shortage,Teacher Persistence,Master Teachers

Given the importance of good teaching and leadership for school success, turnaround schools should think carefully about how to structure professional environments that reward and motivate excellence. A system of &quot;Pay-for-Contribution&quot; that includes tools such as hard-to-staff and skill shortage pay, performance pay, and/or retention pay, will help attract and retain the type of human capital needed for successful turnarounds. Turnaround schools and clusters provide a perfect setting to implement innovative, non-traditional approaches to teacher and principal compensation. The flexible operating conditions of turnaround schools will allow such pay-for contribution methods to be incubated and, if successful, implemented more widely in other schools and systems. (Contains 8 endnotes.)
Negotiating for Change: Modifying Collective Bargaining Agreements for School Turnaround
Author: Weinberg, Rebecca
Date: 2011-06-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Teacher Effectiveness,Accountability,Organizations (Groups),Collective Bargaining,Educational Change,School Turnaround,Leadership Effectiveness,Student Needs,Grants,Educational Improvement,Incentives,Intervention,Contracts,Educational Environment,Teacher Evaluation,Unions

Dramatically improving student achievement in a school that has been failing for many years requires dramatically different conditions. Only the most effective teachers and leaders should be in the building, and the leadership must have the flexibility to respond strategically to the needs of the students, with regular input from teachers. Although state and district policy influence what occurs in school buildings in states with collective bargaining, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is the key lever that exerts significant control over day-to-day conditions. Traditional CBAs limit the implementation of turnaround and must be modified to create the conditions necessary for the effort to be successful. With unprecedented resources flowing from USDOE in the form of Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants, states and districts have more incentive than ever to intervene with bold turnaround strategies in chronically underperforming schools. There has never been a time with more targeted funding or political cover for states and districts to challenge the status quo and do what's best for student achievement. To shed light on how states, districts, unions and advocates can help modify their local CBA to support school turnaround, this guide: (1) identifies the contract elements that must be bargained to create the conditions for successful turnaround; (2) suggests strategies for districts and unions to pursue collaborative negotiation; and (3) provides examples of states, districts and unions that have begun this challenging but necessary work to make all schools, for all children, highly effective learning environments. (Contributing authors of this report are: Michael Contompasis, Dalia Hochman, and Meredith Liu. Contains 4 resources, 1 online resource and 70 endnotes.)
Washington Adequacy Funding Study
Author: Conley, David T.
Date: 2007-01-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Evidence,Expenditures,Expenditure per Student,Intervention,Evaluation Methods,Cost Indexes,Costs,Program Costs,Student Costs,Operations Research,Educational Finance,Low Income Groups,Funding Formulas,School Size,Models,Salary Wage Differentials,Comparable Worth,Improvement Programs,Information Sources,Value Judgment,Cost Effectiveness,Effective Schools Research,Case Studies,Educational Improvement,Methods Research,Educational Policy

The goal of this study was to determine the level of educational expenditure necessary to make ample provision for the education of all students, providing all students with the skills to meet long-term academic standards, pursue additional learning beyond high school, and become productive citizens and contributing members of society. This study drew from four established adequacy funding methodologies to estimate an adequate expenditure level. These were the successful schools method, the evidence-based method, the professional judgment method, and the cost function method. The evidence-based and professional judgment methods yielded a set of changes to the baseline prototypes necessary for Washington schools to achieve goals set at the local, state, and federal levels, and to do so with an increasingly challenging student population. The major interventions are similar, but not identical, at all three levels. The interventions are specifically adapted to the needs and structures of each level. In addition, some interventions are specific to a particular grade level. All of the interventions at each level were identified through the evidence-based method and endorsed by the professional judgment panelists. A bibliography is included. (Contains 17 figures and 25 tables.)
Math and Science Are America's Future. National Math and Science Initiative Annual Report, 2008
Author: National Math and Science Initiative
Date: 2008-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Advanced Placement,Incentives,Grants,Mathematics Achievement,Science Achievement,Mathematics Education,Science Education,Mathematics Skills,Science Process Skills,Teacher Education Programs,Pedagogical Content Knowledge,Majors (Students),Teacher Certification,At Risk Students,Mathematics Teachers,Science Teachers,Disproportionate Representation,Achievement Gap,Racial Differences,Minority Groups,Gender Bias,Equal Education,Partnerships in Education,High Schools,Program Effectiveness,English Instruction,English Teachers

This paper presents the annual report of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) for 2008. Eighteen months ago, the National Math and Science Initiative did not exist. Today NMSI is helping lead the country forward in math and science. In just 18 months, NMSI has rolled out the first round of grants and has implemented programs in 14 vanguard states. In 2007, NMSI awarded grants of $13.2 each to non-profits in six states to institute AP Training and Incentive programs and grants of $2.4 million to 13 institutions of higher learning for the replication of the UTeach training program for math and science teachers. These programs are essential to address two of the country's most pressing challenges: (1) Getting more American students to master the math and science knowledge that is crucial in today's high-tech economy; and (2) Training more teachers in math and science content so they can inspire and equip the next generation to succeed. Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Programs are now operating in these six states: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Thanks to those programs, more than 13,000 students are now enrolled in more challenging math, science and English classes in 67 schools. Enrollment in AP programs has increased nearly 70 percent in those schools thanks to NMSI grants. The UTeach program for math and science teachers has been implemented in 13 universities. Originated at The University of Texas at Austin, the UTeach program equips students majoring in math, science or computer science to receive full teaching certification without adding time or cost to their degree. UTeach teachers, who often serve in schools with a low-income student population, foster scientific and numeric literacy in children, which prepares them to function in a society that is increasingly dependent on science and technology. Appended are: (1) Advanced Placement Progress Report; and (2) UTeach Report.
Changing Lives, Strengthening America. National Math and Science Initiative Annual Report, 2010
Author: National Math and Science Initiative
Date: 2010-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Mathematics Education,Science Education,Advanced Placement Programs,Achievement Gains,Teacher Education Programs,Mathematics Teachers,Science Teachers,Program Effectiveness,Military Personnel,Family (Sociological Unit),Rural Schools,Electronic Learning,Females,Student Leadership,Student Attitudes,High School Students,College Students

This paper presents the annual report of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) for 2010. Four years ago, NMSI was just an idea. NMSI not only hit the ground running in 2007, it picked up the best ideas in the country and rolled them out in schools and universities from coast to coast. Within a year of its creation, NMSI had awarded grants to six states to bring college-level Advanced Placement courses to more students, raising the bar in math and science education in public high schools. A new foundation was established for more students--rich or poor, urban or rural--to succeed in college. Grants were also awarded to 13 universities to implement the highly successful UTeach program to recruit, inspire and train the next generation of math and science teachers. This paper reports the documented progress made by NMSI in four years. Thousands more of young people are being prepared to succeed in college, careers, and life. In turn, that strengthens America. It will take an even more concerted effort to raise the bar in math and science education for more children. The nation needs a sustained investment in education and basic research to keep from slipping further behind. Congress, corporations and foundations must commit the necessary resources to effect change on an even broader scale. [For 2009 annual report, see ED537893.]