A Review of Secondary Mathematics Textbooks on Families of Functions

In 2008, twelve commonly used textbooks were studied for their use of technology and content across 5 families of functions: polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric. Since 2008, the Common Core State Standards have been released and many textbook companies have used this as an opportunity to change their textbook content. This study reevaluates new high school algebra and precalculus textbooks across many of the same criterion studied in 2008. Some topics such as increasing and decreasing functions significantly increased their presence in the mathematics textbooks while topics such as sketching graphs has decreased. The reason for this shift in the content is unknown, but could be attributed to a change in emphasis of topics in the new Common Core State Standards

Historical Trends and Emerging Issues in Teacher Education Programs in the United States

US national and state educational polices are advocating for more teacher accountability with respect to student performance, and accrediting agencies are requiring more evidence of teachers’ mastery of subject area knowledge and professional skills. This paper examines some of the significant educational and social issues currently facing basic education and teacher preparation programs in the United States. It addresses numerous topics and focuses on five general issues that confront K-12 education and either directly or indirectly Teacher Preparation Programs. Las políticas educativas nacionales y estatales de Estados Unidos están abogando por una mayor responsabilidad de los maestros con respecto al desempeño de los estudiantes, y las agencias de acreditación están requiriendo más evidencia del maestría de los maestros en el conocimiento del área temática y habilidades profesionales. Este artículo examina algunos de los problemas educativos y sociales importantes que actualmente enfrentan los programas de educación básica y preparación para maestros en los Estados Unidos. Aborda numerosos temas y se centra en cinco cuestiones generales que se enfrentan a la educación K-12 y directa o indirectamente los programas de preparación de maestros

Reading, Writing, and the Common Core State Standards

During the 2014-15 school year, more high school seniors read the young adult-oriented books The Fault in Our Stars andDivergent than Shakespeare's Macbeth or Hamlet, according to a report that tracks what K-12 students at more than 30,000 schools are reading during the school year. These books are generally self-selected, making it not all that surprising that students would prefer to read a contemporaryNew York Times bestseller than a 17th-century play written in early modern English. And while some of the books that students select are thematically targeted to a mature audience, they are not particularly challenging to read for the average high schooler. The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, for example, have the readability of a fourth- or fifth-grade text in terms of sentence structure and word difficulty.There is substantial evidence that much of what students are currently reading is not particularly challenging. This lack of complexity in students' reading and writing is likely undermining their preparedness for college and the workplace. In addition, despite the predominant role that reading and writing serve in other subjects and disciplines, literacy development has long been relegated to the English or reading classroom.Take the issue of reading complexity. Three of the top five most commonly assigned titles in grades 9 through 12 are To Kill a Mockingbird, The Crucible, and Of Mice and Men. All three books, while classics, are not particularly challenging in terms of sentence structure and complexity. Does that mean that Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which broaches issues of racial inequality should instead be introduced to elementary school-aged children? Most people—including English teachers—probably would not agree. Readability is only one factor when considering the intended audience of a work of literature.But the difficulty of the reading material to which students are exposed is not inconsequential. An ACT report finds that "performance on complex texts is the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are likely to be ready for college and those who are not." This holds true across gender, race and ethnicity, and family income levels

Towards Women-Centered Education: A Critical Alternative to Patriarchal Indoctrination

Patriarchy has been uncovered as the fundamental historical pattern of exploitation by Gerda Lerner and other feminist scholars. Starting from the premise of patriarchy as the historical and philosophical foundation of modern institutionalized exploitation, this thesis advances a general model of patriarchy as an exploitative institutionalized power dynamic that is based upon three primary components: forced compliance, institutional legitimization, and conditioned devaluation. By deconstructing patriarchal indoctrination using a hypothetical case study of a Maryland student’s typical school day at a public elementary school, a set of key patriarchal indoctrination techniques is identified and located within these components. Women-centered alternatives are suggested for each technique and primary component, and these alternatives are used to propose a women-centered educational model that promotes innate value through mutuality, diversity, and respect

Common Core State Standards and Assessments: Background and Issues

Over the last two decades, there has been interest in developing federal policies that focus on student outcomes in elementary and secondary education. Perhaps most prominently, the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; P.L. 107-110), which amended and reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), marked a dramatic expansion of the federal government’s role in supporting standards-based instruction and test-based accountability, thereby increasing the federal government’s involvement in decisions that directly affect teaching and learning. Under the ESEA, states are required to have standards in reading and mathematics for specified grade levels in order to receive funding under Title I-A of the ESEA. In response to this requirement, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted and implemented standards that meet the requirements of the ESEA. Since the ESEA was last comprehensively reauthorized by NCLB, three major changes have taken place that have possibly played a role in the selection of reading and mathematics standards by states: (1) the development and release of the Common Core State Standards; (2) the Race to the Top (RTT) State Grant competition and RTT Assessment Grants competition; and (3) the ESEA flexibility package provided by ED to states with approved applications. As of August 2014, 43 states, the District of Columbia, 4 outlying areas, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) had at some point adopted the Common Core State Standards. Indiana and Oklahoma recently became the first states to adopt and subsequently discontinue use of the Common Core State Standards. South Carolina has indicated that the Common Core State Standards will be fully implemented for the 2014-2015 school year but will be replaced by new standards in the 2015-2016 school year. This report examines each of the aforementioned changes and discusses how they are interrelated. More specifically, it provides (1) background information on current law, (2) a discussion of the development of the Common Core State Standards and state adoption of the standards, (3) an analysis of the RTT State Grant competition and how the structure of the grant application process may have incentivized state adoption of the Common Core State Standards, (4) an examination of the RTT Assessment Grants competition and the federal funds provided to support the development of assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and (5) an analysis of the ESEA flexibility package and how the conditions that states had to meet to receive waivers of ESEA accountability provisions may have incentivized state implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This report also examines prohibitions in the ESEA and the General Education Provisions Act related to standards, assessments, and curriculum. Additionally, it includes a brief discussion of the relationship between teacher and school leader evaluation systems that are being developed by states and the Common Core State Standards. Finally, the report examines issues that have arisen in relation to the Common Core State Standards, including the following: • whether states were incentivized by the Administration to adopt and implement the Common Core State Standards; • whether state adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards could result in a national assessment and national standards; • whether state adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards could lead to the development of a national curriculum; •possible issues that may need to be addressed if a state chooses to discontinue its use of the Common Core State Standards; • possible issues related to teacher evaluation and the Common Core State Standards; • possible technology issues related to implementation of the Common Core State Standards; and • possible issues related to the long-term maintenance of the Common Core State Standards

Closing the Expectations Gap 2009

Presents findings from a 2008-09 state-by-state survey of progress in aligning standards, graduation requirements, assessments, data systems, and accountability systems with colleges' and employers' expectations. Charts trends and lists resources

Diffusion of Revocation: The Movement Away from the Common Core State Standards

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), released in 2010, represented a new push to standardize curriculum across states and to promote college and career readiness in schools. The federal government’s Race to the Top grant program indirectly created strong incentives for states to adopt the CCSS, and 45 states and the District of Columbia adopted the standards. Since their adoption, many states have shown signs of moving away from the CCSS through bills introduced in state legislatures and Indiana has recently become the first state to officially opt out of the Standards. This paper seeks to examine this movement away from the CCSS and to answer the following research question: what are the factors that are leading states to show signs of backing away from these standards that they have adopted? This paper addresses internal and external factors that could lead to this outcome, including states’ motivation to move away from the CCSS and the legislative obstacles that states may face in this process

P-20 ALIGNMENT FOR SMALL TOWNS AND RURAL COMMUNITIES

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine if there is a difference between current workforce skill levels and employer expectations within the Paducah micropolitan area. College and career readiness and cohort graduation rate data were collected for school systems in Kentucky from 2013 to 2016. Using both the college and career readiness data and the cohort graduation data as the dependent variables, the independent-sample t-tests were performed to compare the college and career readiness rates and cohort graduation rates of the pK-12 public schools in the Paducah micropolitan area (N = 12) versus the remaining pK-12 public schools (N = 157; N = 156) ) in Kentucky. Interviews with instructional supervisors (N = 8) and presidents or human resource directors (N = 4) of the largest employers were conducted to analyze workforce preparedness of pK-12 public school students and workforce skill level expectations of new employees in the Paducah micropolitan area. Results of the statistical analyses lacked significance, indicating high school graduates in the Paducah micropolitan area had similar skills when compared to the other graduates across the state of Kentucky. However, analysis of the interviews suggested that recently hired employees in the Paducah micropolitan area lacked essential workforce skills. The convergent mixed method design was used to obtain a complete understanding of the lack of essential workforce skills in the Paducah micropolitan area. Discussions relate the outcomes of the study to existing research of identifying and teaching the essential workforce skills for the global economy

People, Policy, and Praxis: Freirean Pedagogy and Local-Level Policy Implementation

Freirean pedagogy in adult education programs that embrace an open dialectic can be responsive to situations where ambiguity in policy implementation results in discrimination and disenfranchisement. The case presented below comes from my experiences as an educator in a Freirean, Spanish-language, high school equivalency (HSE) program in New Jersey during significant national changes to HSE credentialing in 2014. It describes policy implementation in the local context within the relationships between governing institutions, service organizations, and the people policies are meant to govern. The case constructs a narrative for the relevant policy environments and actions at the time through the assemblage of primary sources, such as policy documents and internal organizational reports, as well as an analysis of 25 news reports and commentaries taken from 2013-2014. I argue that all policies, even those initiated at the national level, are ultimately enacted locally through the dialectic relationships between policy makers, administrators, program staff, and students at a variety of public and private organizations. I show how Freirean approaches to program design and operation respond to political, policy, and programmatic complexities to address discrimination and disenfranchisement. In conclusion, I discuss implications for educators seeking to adopt a Freirean framework into their own program design and implementation. These include the development of local praxis within an analysis of larger oppressive structures, thoughtful design and critical flexibility to work closely with students in program operation, and engagement in dialectic relationships with existing or potential collaborators

More Than a Search Engine: Undergraduate Perspectives on Library Instruction

Historically, libraries have been repositories of knowledge for scholars. Overtime, libraries have evolved into media centers that include digital access points, instructional spaces, and comfortable gathering places. As school libraries transition to accommodate the 2lst century learner, are educators meeting the needs of the college and career bound students they serve? The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insight into the information literacy instruction that occurs in high school libraries. Specifically, how effective this instruction was in preparing students for college. This research was conducted with five undergraduates attending college in a variefy of public and private institutions. Data was collected through personal interviews with each college student. Data was gathered to determine the undergraduates\u27 perspectives on their high school library instruction and how it helped them in college. The resulting themes indicated that participants perceived their information literacy instruction to be adequate and identified ways to enrich their high school experiences which would have eased their transition to college. The findings provide a platform for high school librarians and educators to identifo successful practices and work toward collaborative teaching strategies that enhance information literacy instruction