When state leaders and national partners in the development of the Next Generation Science Standards met to consider implementation strategies, states and school districts wanted to know which materials were aligned to the new standards. The answer from the developers was short but not sweet: You won't find much now, and it's going to…

The authors, pioneers in detracking and in shrinking achievement gaps, pose a question: Is it possible to have all students in a large high school successfully complete a challenging curriculum that gives them practice in the habits and skills necessary for success in college? The answer, they say, "is a resounding yes." This article…

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. They enjoy a huge following of well-wishers and supporters who are optimistic that the standards will boost achievement in U.S. schools. Setting aside the cheerleading and fond hopes, what are the real chances of success? The most reasonable prediction is…

"It's always been a promising time for teacher leadership. It's just never been a successful time," writes noted educator Roland Barth. Why? Barth points to five obstacles: administrator resistance, the taboo in teaching against elevating oneself higher than one's peers, the fact that teachers' plates are full, the…

"If you want to be able to read with comprehension, you must become knowledgeable about the topic. The more relevant knowledge you have, the less it matters whether the text is complex or not," write Hirsch and Hansel in this article. Research has shown that a student who has extensive background knowledge of a topic will find it easy to…

Now that many schools are developing curriculums thoughtfully linked to standards--including benchmarks for achievement--many teachers wrestle with this question: Can we still make room for individualized instruction? The authors, who have taught at diverse international schools in many countries, believe the answer is yes. They argue that under…

The challenge of adolescent literacy involves more than providing remediation for students who have not mastered basic reading skills. To become successful learners, adolescents must master complex texts, understand the diverse literacy demands of the different content areas, and navigate digital texts. In this article, Biancarosa reviews what the…

High school students' lack of experience and practice with reading complex texts is a primary cause of their difficulties with college-level reading. Filling the syllabus with digital texts does little to address this deficiency. Complex texts demand three dispositions from readers: a willingness to probe works characterized by dense meanings, the…

The Common Core State Standards, released in June 2010, offer an opportunity to shift education away from shallow, test-prep instruction and toward a focus on key cognitive skills, writes Conley. Two consortia of states are now developing common assessments to measure these standards--assessments that will be designed to capture deeper, more…

The skills that students need for the 21st century are not really new, assert Rotherham and Willingham. Critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and global awareness have been important to human progress throughout history, at least among the elites in different societies. What is new is the extent to which individual and…

Dr. Edward White, Hillsborough High School principal, has decided to allocate faculty in-service time to address an unproductive chasm between academic and career and technical education programming within the school, which has created tensions among the faculty. On returning to his office after the professional development session, which was…

Educators Linda Darling-Hammond and Diane Friedlaender share findings from their recent report highlighting five California high schools that have beaten the odds in supporting the success of low-income students of color. Animo Inglewood Charter High School, Stanley E. Foster Construction Tech Academy, June Jordan School for Equity, Leadership…

The research reported in this article follows-up on a study conducted by Anast-May, Buckner, and Geer (2010). The 47 interviewed principals identified three types of experiences school leadership interns needed in order to prepare them to lead school improvement efforts. This study explores interns' perspectives on the efficacy of their…

For many, the dominant model of curriculum development in science includes generating a topic, clarifying science content, identifying activities associated with the topic, and figuring out an assessment. Unfortunately, this approach tends to overemphasize activities and underemphasize mastery of science concepts and the process of scientific…

Robertson discusses the "perceived dichotomy" that permeates science teaching: teachers can either stress inquiry learning with lots of hands-on experiences or stress content knowledge and swap hands-on inquiry for direct instruction. Although a curriculum of unstructured hands-on science activities leads to shallow content knowledge, it is…