More than ever, people are seeking substance use disorder treatment during the adolescent and young adult stages of development. Developmentally, many of these young adults new to recovery are in the process of making career decisions that may require attendance at a college or university. However, the collegiate environment is not conducive to a…

In an effort to increase student readiness for college and career, many States have adopted new academic standards encouraged by education reform advocates. These standards are commonly referred to as the Common Core Standards. Schools from States that have adopted the Common Core Standards have been compelled to significantly restructure their…

Finland has, as of late, become an inspiration for American school reform. There is no denying that we have much to learn from the Finnish system and it rightly deserves its global accolades. However, over the course of the following pages, I would like to suggest that it is also lucrative to look north of the 49th parallel and consider the…

Defining challenging curriculum first requires an examination of what is meant by curriculum. This discussion of challenging curriculum is motivated by the evaluation of the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership Program. Standards frameworks, textbooks, software, and pedagogy are some aspects of curricula. The level of…

Summarizes research on curriculum-based measurement (CBM) within four strands, providing an overview of studies demonstrating the psychometric tenability of CBM, discussing the body of work showing how teachers can use CBM to inform instructional planning, examining CBM's potential use in evaluating treatment effects, and summarizing work on CBM…

Discusses the development of tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), highlighting how they have dramatically changed higher education for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Selected institutional portraits demonstrate the intersection between culture and community in TCUs. The paper concludes that TCUs are promoting a new mindset that is…

Describes the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) seminar as it relates to school reform and curriculum, noting lessons learned from the ATLAS experience and explaining the author's thoughts about curriculum in the areas of a focus on disciplinary understanding in democratic schools, understandings and authorities,…

Presents a follow-up review of four articles on the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) project which brought together several educational enterprises that worked with existing schools to create one reform-oriented approach to school improvement. The article notes differences in the authors' views on school reform…

Introduces several articles on curriculum and school improvement which illustrate questions of curriculum that arose at different times in different arenas within the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) Communities Project (which created a design for U.S. schools based on ideas of four organizations involved in…

Examines competing and conflicting approaches to curriculum (using information from an ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) seminar study group that investigated differences in participants' approaches), describing the four sources of authority that shape curriculum decisions, discussing different balances of…

Uses the case-study approach to examine the use of ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students)-related curricula in one middle school that focused on learner thinking and researching essential questions, noting matches and mismatches between the beliefs and assumptions of different actors in the reform effort and the…

Provides snapshots of the classroom activities of one middle school teacher over two years as she was introduced to ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) program concepts like personalization, student exhibitions, and teaching for understanding, describing six dilemmas she faced as she used a…

Discusses the positive effects of the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) seminars on helping partner organizations understand certain shared underpinnings in their work on curriculum, reviewing a series of articles on the subject and noting that the partners share the belief that democratic dialog fosters the…

Reviews four articles on the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) project, which show how curriculum and school social structure are joined at the hip of the ATLAS design. The articles wrestle with the impact of the school's social structure on teachers' thinking and curriculum implementation, and vice versa, and…

As a follow-up to a series of articles on curriculum from the ATLAS (Authentic Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of all Students) seminar, this paper discusses differing and often controversial views on and definitions of curriculum and curriculum development. It explains the complexity of curriculum building and concludes that the American…