The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) establish a challenging text-complexity standard for all high school graduates to read at college and workplace text-complexity levels. We argue that implementation of the CCSS standard requires concurrent examination of historical student reading-growth trends. An example of a historical student average…

This article reports the findings from a comparative analysis that examined several mathematical content strands, reasoning processes, and emphasis on technology in prior K-8 state mathematics standards and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). Various methodological tools were utilized to compare and contrast CCSSM with prior…

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system's efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the…

The Collaborative Language and Literacy Instruction Project (CLLIP) is a model of professional development designed to help teachers incorporate research-based practices of literacy instruction, support mastery, and sustained use of these practices through coaching, and serve as a foundation for whole-school reform efforts. We describe the model,…

International comparisons have highlighted that the U.S. mathematics curriculum, both in terms of curriculum influences (e.g., textbooks, standards) and actual instruction, is broad and shallow. Standards-based reform is explicitly designed to improve coherence and reduce redundancy across grades. This article evaluates the redundancy of…

This article reflects on my 28-year tenure editing "The Elementary School Journal" ("ESJ"). During my tenure as editor, the educational system was in constant reform, from a Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind. Considerable evidence suggests that these various reforms, which consumed vast resources, were not successful in raising the…

Researchers have persisted in framing leadership as the driver for change and performance improvement in schools despite convincing theoretical commentary that proposes leadership as a process of reciprocal interaction. Although conceptualizing leadership as a reciprocal process offers leverage for understanding leadership effects on learning,…

Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary…

This article reports on a 4-year longitudinal study of the effects of Literacy Collaborative (LC), a school-wide reform model that relies primarily on the one-on-one coaching of teachers as a lever for improving student literacy learning. Kindergarten through second-grade students in 17 schools were assessed twice annually with DIBELS and Terra…

Many have proposed the creation of a practitioner knowledge base as a foundation for the continuous improvement of teaching. In this article, we discuss the promise, and the challenges, involved in the creation and use of such a knowledge base. We begin by reflecting on the difficulties of changing teaching, a cultural and contextual activity. We…

Consistent with the theme of this issue, we describe the details of one continuing effort to build knowledge for teacher education. We argue that building a useful knowledge base requires attention to the processes used to generate, record, and vet knowledge. By using 4 features of knowledge-building systems we identified in the introductory…

A 5-year prospective, quasi-experimental investigation demonstrated that grade-level teams in 9 Title 1 schools using an inquiry-focused protocol to solve instructional problems significantly increased achievement. Teachers applying the inquiry protocol shifted attribution of improved student performance to their teaching rather than external…

Too often, African American elementary school students, including the gifted, disengage academically and underachieve in public schools. Increased research on the underachievement and low achievement of African American students in gifted education programs has suggested that an array of educational, personal/social, and familial factors (e.g.,…

With increased emphasis on state standards and assessments in science, one might question whether there is still a role for national science standards and benchmarks. This article makes a case for the importance of national guidelines and identifies key functions performed by the National Research Council's "National Science Education Standards"…

This observational study involved literacy and mathematics instruction of 145 teachers in grades 3 through 5 in 20 low-income schools enrolled in the U.S. government's Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) Demonstration program. Observed curriculum and instructional practices were primarily and coherently focused on acquisition of basic facts and…