Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008

Presents revisions to the 1996 Interstate School Leader Licensure Consortium guidelines, designed to help states and school districts improve leadership policy and practice by incorporating new research into their standards

The Impact of Grading Standards on Student Achievement, Educational Attainment, and Entry-Level Earnings

Despite recent theoretical work and proposals from educational reformers, there is little empirical work on the effects of higher grading standards. In this paper we use data from the High School and Beyond survey to estimate the effects of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry level earnings. We consider not only how grading standards affect average outcomes but also how they affect the distribution of educational gains by skill level and race/ethnicity. We find that higher standards raise test scores throughout the distribution of achievement, but that the increase is greatest toward the top of the test score distribution. Higher standards have no positive effect on educational attainment, however, and indeed have negative effects on high school graduation among blacks and Hispanics. We suggest a relative performance hypothesis to explain how higher standards may reduce educational attainment even as they increase educational achievement.

Truth, Goodness and Beauty: Revisiting the Classic Common Core Standards

As the educational community works to simultaneously understand and implement the Common Core standards and its emphasis on the development of various intellectual traits and capacities, it is worth pausing to consider this most recent educational reform in light of the classical understanding of the educational task. This article highlights three elements from the “classic” common core educational standards as understood by classical educational theorists: truth, goodness, and beauty and the role each plays in developing an educated person. These classic standards place the development and elevation of the human spirit as the foundation of all learning. Although truth, goodness, and beauty each have a unique contribution in the education of individuals, this article focuses on beauty and the way it stimulates a desire for both goodness and truth. Additionally, these standards require a different form of pedagogy; developing a commitment to truth and goodness and experiencing beauty do not come to a person with traditional forms of education. The ground for this investigation is found in the works of an ancient philosopher, Plato; a classical educational theorist, John Steward Mill; and a passage from the Christian scriptures, Psalms 27. The article culminates with suggestions, a primer for ways to bring beauty to students both in the physical environment of the classroom and in the person of the teacher

Educational standards in private and public schools

When school quality increases with the educational standard set by schools, education before college needs not be a hierarchy with private schools offering better quality than public schools. An alternative configuration, with public schools offering a higher educational standard than private schools, is also possible, in spite of the fact that tuition levied by private schools is strictly positive. In our model, private schools can offer a lower educational standard at a positive price because they attract students with a relatively high cost of effort, who would find the high standards of public schools excessively demanding. With the key parameters calibrated for the US and Italy, our model predicts that majority voting in the US supports a system with high quality private schools and low quality public schools, as assumed by Epple and Romano, 1998. An equilibrium with low quality private schools is supported instead in Italy.private schools, public schools, majority voting

Educational Standards in Private and Public Schools

We show that, when school quality is measured by the educational standard and attaining the standard requires costly effort, secondary education needs not be a hierarchy with private schools offering better quality than public schools, as in Epple and Romano, 1998. An alternative configuration, with public schools offering a higher educational standard than private schools, is also possible, in spite of the fact that tuition levied by private schools is strictly positive. In our model, private schools can offer a lower educational standard at a positive price because they attract students with a relatively high cost of effort, who would find the high standards of the public school excessively demanding. With the key parameters calibrated on the available micro-econometric evidence from the US, our model predicts that majority voting in the US supports a system with high quality private schools and low quality public schools, as assumed by Epple and Romano, 1998. This system, however, is not the one that would be selected by the social planner, who prefers high quality public schools combined with low quality private schools.private schools, public schools, majority voting

A Teacher in the Living Room? Educational Media for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers

Examines available research, and arguments by proponents and critics, of electronic educational media use by young children. Examines educational claims in marketing and provides recommendations for developing research and product standards

Innovative methods of teaching and harmonization of educational standards in the sphere of computing

Competence-based approach to education (unlike traditional qualification) reflects requirements not only to the content of education, but also to a behavioral component. Recommendations about drawing up curricula for training of specialists in the computing sphere are considered. New pedagogical methods, proposing creative combination of the theory and practice which is reached in the course of direct professional activity are analyzed. The analysis of the problems arising at creation of educational standards is also given. It has shown that professional standards are primary link in high-quality training of various areas of economy specialists (including for computing area), and also ensuring their competitiveness have to be a basis for their development. Thus, problems when developing professional standards complicate prospect of harmonization of professional and educational standards which demands necessary methodological, methodical and expert completion at the first design stage

Quality Counts 2010: Arkansas Holds Steady

In an attempt to gauge the educational progress of the nation and each state, Education Week has published state report cards since 1997 in its annual Quality Counts series. The 14th annual report - Quality Counts 2010 - was released in January. Four of the six categories (Chance for Success, School Finance, The Teaching Profession, and Standards, Assessment and Accountability) were updated to reflect the most current (2010) data. Arkansas received the highest possible grade (A) in the Standards, Assessments & Accountability category, receiving perfect scores in the subcategories for Standards and School Accountability. Similarly, Arkansas\u27 grade for Transitions and Alignment - or how well a state’s educational system is coordinated from elementary school to college - was a B, tied for sixth in the nation

Reflections in the Classroom: Learning to Market Education

Reflective practice has become a key trope within debates around teaching and learning in higher education. Yet, beneath this anodyne rhetoric, teachers and students are being disciplined in a manner that aligns so-called “standards” and professional development with the corporate strategies of educational institutions. Educational developers who seek to promote “standards” and “accountability” in the learning environment enforce the practice of “reflection” as a key educational experience and tool. Repetitive reflective exercises become the means and the monitoring of education. How should anthropology, a discipline that focuses on dynamics of diversity and structure, respond to this discourse, and the generic teaching methods that it promotes. And what are the links between these initiatives and the marketing of higher education as a quality-assured educational product? This article compares the author’s experience of teaching English to European teenagers in a small community centre to teaching anthropology to undergraduates in a large university. It uses the case of the HEA accredited teaching course that was meant to bridge these two, apparently distinct educational realms