The Search For Better Educational Standards

​This book deals with the development of New Zealand’s standards system for primary school achievement, ‘Kiwi Standards’, which took effect from 2010 onwards and is becoming increasingly embedded over time. The approach, where teachers make ‘Overall Teacher Judgements’ based on a range of assessment tools and their own observations rather than using any particular national test, has created predictable problems with moderation within and across schools. It has been claimed that this ‘bold’ Kiwi Standards approach avoids the narrowed curriculum and mediocre outcomes of high-stakes assessment in other countries. Yet this book suggests it just produces another variant of the same problems and demonstrates that even a relatively weak high-stakes assessment approach still produces performative effects. The book provides a blow by blow account of the development of a policy including the continuous repositioning of New Zealand’s Government as it has sought to justify the policy in the face of opposition from educators. Indeed the Kiwi Standards tale provides a world-class example of teachers fighting back against policy, with the help of academics. There is an indigenous Māori aspect to the story as well. Finally, this book also provides comparative international perspectives including responses from well-known US, English and Australian academics.

Susan Ohanian recounts her quest to make sense of the Standards educational movement.

Since the early 1980s, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) have shown unprecedented interest in the setting and evaluating of educational standards and in improving assessment procedures. This book is the outcome of a study undertaken by the OECD in 1994 at the request of the Government of the United States. A conference held in Paris in December 1993 launched the study; experts from 10 OECD countries were then commissioned to write case-study reports, which were presented at a seminar in Paris in October 1994. The study was carried out under the auspices of the Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) and the Education Committee. The book contains an overview by John Lowe, followed by the 10 case studies from Australia, Canada (Ontario), England and Wales, France, Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia), Ireland, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. A synthesis offers a functional model of reform and considers the ways in which the United States and other governments could profit from the case studies. A total of 15 tables and 24 figures are included. (LMI)

Offers a detailed, pragmatic discussion of potential steps to reverse the decline in educational standards.

The lives of America's students, educators, and parents are being significantly touched by the current standards and accountability reform. The Standards Primer explores the historical development of this reform, and compares two different views of educational standards and accountability - technical standards and standards of complexity. How each view impacts curriculum, instruction, and assessment is discussed, and implications of these views for teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, community, and students are presented, along with a discussion of related issues involving equity and ethics on this topic. The Standards Primer provides critical information - including an extensive reference section containing print and nonprint resources - that will lead to informed decision making concerning this national educational reform.

Learn how to overcome the knowing-doing gap in standards-based learning systems, and move toward unpacking the standards and learning targets your students need.

This book takes an in-depth look at how education and psychology relate to each other, and at the current state of this relationship. Through comprehensive analysis of the ideological, historical, social and professional contexts of this interaction, the author develops the theme that, despite basic differences in aims, the fields are interconnected.