Say What?!!

This is a list (not exhaustive) for parents and educators. The large number of educational terms and acronyms are defined and explained. Feel free to suggest additions or post your own questions regarding terms not found here. Good Luck! Thank you to Bob Garry for starting the list. A

ability grouping Assigning students to classes based on their past achievement or presumed ability to learn (also known as homogeneous grouping). Grouping students according to their actual progress in a particular school subject is different from grouping them according to assumptions about their ability to learn the subject—although the results may be quite similar. And grouping them by subject is different from tracking, which strictly speaking refers to placing them in the same groups for all their classes based on their general ability to learn. Students may also be grouped within classes, but intraclass grouping permits more flexibility so is less controversial. Whether students should or should not be grouped by ability is a persistent issue in education. Advocates say it is unrealistic to expect teachers to provide for the great range of differences in student backgrounds and abilities, and that a certain amount of grouping is better for students. Critics contend, citing research, that when students are grouped by ability, those in lower tracks are usually taught poorly and don't get exposed to "high-status" knowledge.

abstinence only The view that sex and family-life education courses should teach that sexual intercourse is always inappropriate for young unmarried people. Advocates say it is self-defeating for educators to say, "You shouldn't, but if you do…." Instead, they say, adults must communicate an unambiguous message that sex outside marriage is wrong. Opponents of the abstinence only position, which is sometimes required by law, say it ignores the reality of widespread sexual activity and deprives young people of information they should have, especially with the current threat of AIDS.

accountability The responsibility of an agency to its sponsors and clientele for accomplishing its mission with prudent use of resources. In education, accountability is currently thought to require measurable proof that teachers, schools, districts, and states are teaching students efficiently and well, usually in the form of student success rates on various tests. In recent years, most accountability programs have involved adoption of state curriculum standards and required state tests based on the standards. Many political leaders and educators support this approach, believing that it brings clarity of focus and is improving achievement. Others argue that, because standardized tests cannot possibly measure all the important goals of schooling, accountability systems should be more flexible and use other types of information, such as dropout rates and samples of student work.

accreditation Official recognition that an individual or institution meets required standards. Accreditation of teachers is usually referred to as licensing or certification. Schools are accredited in two ways: by voluntary regional accrediting associations (such as the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement), and by state governments, which are legally responsible for public education. Most high schools seek and receive accreditation by their regional association so that their graduates will be accepted by institutions of higher education. However, that form of accreditation does not necessarily ensure recognition by the state. In recent years, some states have begun to refuse state accreditation to schools with unacceptably low scores on state standards tests.

achievement gap Persistent differences in achievement among different types of students as indicated by scores on standardized tests, teacher grades, and other data. The gaps most frequently referred to are those between whites and minority groups, especially African-Americans and Hispanics.

achievement tests Tests used to measure how much a student has learned in various school subjects. Most students take several standardized achievement tests, such as the California Achievement Tests and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. These norm-referenced, multiple-choice tests are intended to measure students' achievement in the basic subjects found in most school districts' curriculum and textbooks. Results are used to compare the scores of individual students and schools with others—those in the area, across the state, and throughout the United States.

action research Systematic investigation by teachers of some aspect of their work in order to improve their effectiveness. Involves identifying a question or problem and then collecting and analyzing relevant data. (Differs from conventional research because in this case the participants are studying an aspect of their own work and they intend to use the results themselves.) For example, a teacher might decide to give students different assignments according to their assessed learning styles. If the teacher maintained records comparing student work before and after the change, he would be doing action research. If several educators worked together on such a project, it would be considered collaborative action research.

active learning Any situation in which students learn by moving around and doing things, rather than sitting at their desks reading, filling out worksheets, or listening to a teacher. Active learning is based on the premise that if students are not active, they are neither fully engaged nor learning as much as they could. Some educators restrict the term to mean activities outside of school, such as voluntary community service, but others would say that acting out a Shakespeare play in the classroom is active learning.

ADA See average daily attendance.

ADD and ADHD See definition for attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

advanced placement (AP) program College-level courses offered by high schools to students who are above average in academic standing. Most colleges will award college credit to students who pass one of the nationally standardized AP tests. Passing AP tests can save students time and tuition on entry-level college courses.

advisory system A way of organizing schools so that all students have an adult advisor who knows them well and sees them frequently. Although most schools have trained counselors, the counselors work with hundreds of students and cannot see any one student very often. To make advisory groups as small as possible, schools ask staff members who are not classroom teachers—sometimes including the principal, the librarian, or others—to serve as advisors. Most schools schedule periods of time, sometimes daily, for advisory groups to meet for group and individual activities.

affective education Schooling that helps students deal in a positive way with their emotions and values is sometimes called affective to distinguish it from cognitive learning, which is concerned with facts and ideas. Programs designed to help students handle their emotions, which might at one time have been termed affective education, are now more frequently called social and emotional learning.

AFT See the American Federation of Teachers.

alignment The effort to ensure that what teachers teach is in accord with what the curriculum says will be taught and what is assessed on official tests. If students are not taught the intended content—because of inadequate learning materials, inadequate teacher preparation, or other reasons—or if official tests assess knowledge and skills different from those taught, test scores will obviously be lower than they otherwise would be. For this reason, schools and school districts often devote considerable attention to alignment. In general, this is a desirable practice. However, alignment can be destructive if the process is driven by tests that themselves are inadequate, and if educators feel obligated to teach only what the tests measure.

alternative assessment Use of assessment strategies, such as performance assessment, constructed response items, and portfolios, to replace or supplement assessment by machine-scored multiple-choice tests.

alternative scheduling Sometimes called block scheduling, alternative scheduling is a way of organizing the school day, usually in secondary schools, into blocks of time longer than the typical 50-minute class period. Students take as many courses as before (sometimes more), but the courses do not run the entire school year. One alternative schedule used in some secondary schools, known as 4 × 4 (four by four), has four 90-minute classes a day with course changes every 45 days (four times a school year). Students and teachers have fewer classes to prepare for and experience fewer interruptions in the school day. Longer blocks of time allow for more complex learning activities, such as complicated science experiments.

alternative schools Schools that differ in one or more ways from conventional public schools. Alternative schools may reflect a particular teaching philosophy, such as individualization, or a specific focus, such as science and technology. Alternative schools may also operate under different governing principles than conventional schools and be run by organizations other than local school boards. The term alternative schools is often used to describe schools that are designed primarily for students who have been unsuccessful in regular schools, either because of disabilities or because of behavioral or emotional difficulties. However, some proponents argue against establishing "last chance" or "remedial" schools in which the students are seen as a problem to be fixed. They say a better approach is to alter the program and environment to create a positive match with each student. Although some school districts continue to operate alternative schools established a few years ago, those districts starting new unconventional schools these days often characterize them as charter schools.

alternative teacher certification A way for individuals to become classroom teachers without completing an undergraduate or graduate program in teacher education. Alternative certification takes into account an individual's background and experience and usually requires some professional training in the first years of teaching. Alternative certification is most common in urban school systems that have difficulty hiring enough regularly qualified teachers. For example, Teach for America recruits recent college graduates to teach for two years in needy urban schools. Advocates point out that such programs provide a way for bright, idealistic young people to make a needed and worthy contribution. Critics say teaching requires extensive preparation and that such shortcuts undermine efforts to make teaching a true profession.

American College Test (ACT)   The ACT is one of the two commonly used tests designed to assess high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work. Some states or institutions require or prefer the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) for college entrance, some the American College Test. The ACT covers four skill areas: English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning. More than 1 million college-bound high school students take the ACT each year.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) One of the two large teacher unions (the other is the National Education Association). The AFT represents about 1 million teachers, school support staff, higher education faculty and staff, health-care employees, and state and municipal employees. The AFT is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

aptitude tests Tests that attempt to predict a person's ability to do something. The most familiar are intelligence tests, which are intended to measure a person's intellectual abilities. The theory underlying intelligence tests is that each person's mental ability is relatively stable and can be determined apart from her knowledge of subject matter or other abilities, such as creativity. Some aptitude tests measure a person's natural ability to learn particular subjects and skills or suitability for certain careers.

ASCD Founded in 1943, ASCD—an international, nonprofit association—is one of the largest professional development organizations for educator leaders. It provides world-class education information services, offers cutting-edge professional development for effective teaching and learning, and supports activities to provide educational equity for all students. ASCD's 165,000 members reside in more than 140 countries and include principals, teachers, superintendents, professors of education, and other educators.

assessment Measuring the learning and performance of students or teachers. Different types of assessment instruments include achievement tests, minimum competency tests, developmental screening tests, aptitude tests, observation instruments, performance tasks, and authentic assessments. The effectiveness of a particular approach to assessment depends on its suitability for the intended purpose. For instance, multiple-choice, true-or-false, and fill-in-the-blank tests can be used to assess basic skills or to find out what students remember. To assess other abilities, performance tasks may be more appropriate. Performance assessments require students to perform a task, such as serving a volleyball, solving a particular type of mathematics problem, or writing a short business letter to inquire about a product. Sometimes the task may be designed to assess the student's ability to apply knowledge learned in school. For example, a student might be asked to determine what types of plants could be grown in various soil samples by measuring their pH levels. Authentic assessments are performance assessments that are not artificial or contrived. Educators who want assessments to be more authentic worry that most school tests are necessarily contrived. Writing a letter to an imaginary company only to demonstrate to the teacher that you know how is different from writing a letter to a real person or company in order to achieve a real purpose. One way to make an assessment more authentic is to have students choose the particular task they will use to demonstrate what they have learned. For example, a student might choose to demonstrate her understanding of a unit in chemistry by developing a model that illustrates the problems associated with oil spills.

at-risk students Students who have a higher than average probability of dropping out or failing school. Broad categories usually include inner-city, low-income, and homeless children; those not fluent in English; and special-needs students with emotional or behavioral difficulties. Substance abuse, juvenile crime, unemployment, poverty, and lack of adult support are thought to increase a youth's risk factor. The term came into use following the 1983 report of the Commission on Excellence, which declared America's public schools to be "at risk." Educators responded that the real problem was society's neglect of certain students. Some advocates question use of the term "at risk," arguing that it may affect the way teachers, administrators, and peers view the student. But they agree that such students need special attention and support, including caring adults who challenge them with high expectations.

attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) Children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder tend to have problems staying on task and focusing on conversations or activities. ADD children may be impulsive, easily distracted (e.g., by someone talking in another room or by a passing car), full of unfocused energy, fidgety, and restless. Many people with ADD are also hyperactive and may move rapidly from one task to another without completing any of them. Hyperactivity, a disorder of the central nervous system, makes it difficult for affected children to control their motor activities. More than half of students with learning disabilities exhibit behaviors associated with attention problems but do not necessarily have ADD. According to the National Attention Deficit Disorder Association, ADHD is a "diagnosis applied to children and adults who consistently display certain characteristic behaviors over a period of time. The most common core features include: distractibility (poor sustained attention to tasks); impulsivity (impaired impulse control and delay of gratification); and hyperactivity (excessive activity and physical restlessness). In order to meet diagnostic criteria these behaviors must be excessive, long-term, and pervasive. The behaviors must appear before age 7, and continue for at least 6 months. A crucial consideration is that the behaviors must create a real handicap in at least two areas of a person's life, such as school, home, work, or social settings. These criteria set ADHD apart from the 'normal' distractibility and impulsive behavior of childhood, or the effects of the hectic and overstressed lifestyle prevalent in our society." Source: Quote from Fact Sheet on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD/ADD), 1998, Highland Park, IL: National Attention Deficit Disorder Association. Copyright 1998 by Peter Jaksa. Retrieved February 18, 2002, from http://add.org/content/abc/factsheet.htm

authentic assessment Assessment that measures realistically the knowledge and skills needed for success in adult life. The term is often used as the equivalent of performance assessment, which, rather than asking students to choose a response to a multiple-choice test item, involves having students perform a task, such as serving a volleyball, solving a particular type of mathematics problem, or writing a short business letter. There is a distinction, however. Specifically, authentic assessments are performance assessments that are not artificial or contrived. Most school tests are necessarily contrived. Writing a letter to an imaginary company only to demonstrate to the teacher that you know how is different from writing a letter to a real person or company in order to achieve a real purpose. One way to make an assessment more authentic is to have students choose the particular task they will use to demonstrate what they have learned. For example, a student might choose to demonstrate her understanding of a unit in chemistry by developing a model that illustrates the problems associated with oil spills.

authentic learning Schooling related to real-life situations—the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens, consumers, or professionals. Advocates complain that what is taught in school has little relationship to anything people do in the world outside of school; efforts to make learning more authentic are intended to overcome that problem. Authentic learning situations require teamwork, problem-solving skills, and the ability to organize and prioritize the tasks needed to complete the project. Students should know what is expected before beginning their work. Consultation with others, including the instructor, is encouraged. The goal is to produce a high-quality solution to a real problem, not to see how much the student can remember.

average daily attendance (ADA) Based on counts taken on predetermined dates during the school year, average daily attendance is a factor used by state and federal departments of education to determine how much money schools are to receive.

B

basal reader Textbooks and anthologies (collections of stories or other writings) used to teach beginning reading. Many basal readers used to have mostly stories written especially for teaching (only certain words were used, as in the Dick and Jane stories), but many now contain a wider variety of children's literature.

basic skills The fundamental skills needed to succeed in school and eventually in life. Most people think of basic skills as the ability to read, write, and compute. Others, however, would broaden the term to include such skills as the ability to use a computer, the ability to work cooperatively with others, or even the temperament to cope with continuous change.

behavior modification Use of an approach based on behavioral science to change a person's way of doing things—specifically, systematic use of rewards, and sometimes punishments, to shape students' classroom deportment. Such systems usually involve explicit objectives, elaborate record keeping, and visible tracking of progress. Used especially in special education classes for behaviorally disturbed students, behavior modification is controversial. Opponents say it is impersonal and mechanistic, makes students dependent rather than independent (at least at first), and borders on cruelty. Advocates see it as scientifically based and effective.

benchmark A standard for judging a performance. Just as a carpenter might use marks on his workbench to measure how long a part should be, teachers and students can use benchmarks to determine the quality of a student's work. Some schools develop benchmarks to tell what students should know by a particular stage of their schooling; for example, "by the end of sixth grade, students should be able to locate major cities and other geographical features on each of the continents."

bilingual education The use of two or more languages for instruction. In the United States, students in most bilingual classes or programs are those who have not acquired full use of the English language, so they are taught academic content in their native language (usually Spanish) while continuing to learn English. Bilingual education is controversial, having been outlawed in California and severely criticized in other places. Opponents say it is expensive, impractical, and prevents students from learning English rapidly and efficiently. Advocates say it gives language learning students access to the same academic curriculum as other students and that it allows limited English proficient (LEP) parents to remain involved in their children's studies. They claim that maintaining students' native language does not interfere with their learning of English and that research shows that bilingual instruction is effective.

blended learning Combining technology and other multimedia with classroom instruction as an integrated approach to teaching and learning. block grant The result of combining funding for several separate government programs (usually federal) into a larger program with one set of requirements. A positive feature of such a grant is greater flexibility. When federal funds are released to states in the form of block grants, the individual states have more discretion in allocating the funds. Advocates believe that states can define and serve their own areas of need better than the federal government can. A negative aspect of block grants is that the total amount provided is often less than it would otherwise have been.

block scheduling A way of organizing the school day, usually in secondary schools, into blocks of time longer than the typical 50-minute class period. Students take as many courses as before (sometimes more), but the courses do not run the entire school year. One block schedule used in some secondary schools, known as 4 × 4 (four by four), has four 90-minute classes a day with course changes every 45 days (four times a school year). Students and teachers have fewer classes to prepare for and experience fewer interruptions in the school day. Longer blocks of time allow for more complex learning activities, such as complicated science experiments.

Bloom's taxonomy A classification of educational objectives developed in the 1950s by a group of researchers headed by Benjamin Bloom of the University of Chicago. Commonly refers to the objectives for the cognitive domain, which range from knowledge and comprehension (lowest) to synthesis and evaluation (highest). The taxonomy has been widely used by teachers to determine the focus of their instruction and is probably the original reference of the term higher-order thinking.

brain-based teaching Approaches to schooling that educators believe are in accord with recent research on the brain and human learning. Advocates say the human brain is constantly searching for meaning and seeking patterns and connections. Authentic learning situations increase the brain's ability to make connections and retain new information. A relaxed, nonthreatening environment that reduces students' fear of failure is considered by some to enhance learning. Research also documents brain plasticity, which is the brain's ability to grow and adapt in response to external stimuli.

Brown v. Board of Education The case heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1954 in which racial segregation in public schools was held to be unconstitutional.

C

California Achievement Tests (CATs) One of several alternative sets of tests commonly used to measure how much a student has learned in various school subjects. Like most other such tests, the California Achievement tests are nationally normed, multiple-choice tests. Results are used to compare the scores of individual students and schools with others—those in the area, across the state, and throughout the United States.

Carnegie unit A measurement used in most high schools to determine how much coursework a student has completed. Students usually need at least 20 Carnegie units to graduate; one unit is equal to a conventional 50-minute class taken five times per week throughout the school year. A one-semester course is worth one-half of a Carnegie unit. The units were established and promoted 100 years ago by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Today, many educators involved in school reform oppose the use of Carnegie units, arguing that "seat time" is not necessarily a measure of learning.

Channel One A television news service operated by Primedia that is broadcast daily to 8 million students in 12,000 schools. Channel One is controversial because its 10 minutes of news are accompanied by two minutes of advertisements, an example of the increasing intrusion of commercialism in public schools.

Chapter I The label assigned at one time to a section of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The section, which is intended to benefit children who live in high-poverty areas, was originally called Title I, was renamed Chapter I when the legislation was reauthorized, and now is again known as Title I. The current version emphasizes higher learning standards and requires state assessments for measuring student progress.

character education Teaching children about basic human values, including honesty, kindness, generosity, courage, freedom, equality, and respect. The goal is to raise children to become morally responsible, self-disciplined citizens. Problem solving, decision making, and conflict resolution are important parts of developing moral character. Through role playing and discussions, students are helped to see that their decisions affect other people and things. Service learning is frequently a part of a comprehensive character education program. Character education is actively promoted by the Character Education Partnership, a coalition of education and civic organizations with viewpoints that range from liberal to conservative.

charter school A self-governing educational facility that operates under contract between the school's organizers and the sponsors (often local school boards but sometimes other agencies, such as state boards of education). The organizers are often teachers, parents, or private organizations. The charter may detail the school's instructional design, methods of assessment, management, and finances. Charter schools usually receive government funding, may not charge tuition, must be nonsectarian and nondiscriminatory, and must be chosen by teachers, students, and parents. To renew their charters, these schools are expected to show that they meet the expectations of parents and their governing boards, continue to attract families, and retain and attract teachers. In exchange for this form of accountability, charter schools are free from most state and local regulations, often including teacher certification requirements.

chief state school officer The highest-ranking official responsible for public schools in each state. Because states call their highest-ranking school administrator by different titles—superintendent, commissioner, for example—the national organization of these officials is called the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSO).

child-centered Educational programs designed around the assumed characteristics and needs of the child, rather than of parents, teachers, or society.

church-state separation The requirement based on interpretation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and reinforced in numerous rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court that government programs may not advance religion. Because the language of the First Amendment is somewhat ambiguous (it only restricts Congress from adopting legislation "respecting an establishment of religion"), opponents of the court rulings insist that the supposed "wall of separation" between church and state is not as solid as claimed.

classroom climate The "feel" or tone of a classroom, indicated by the total environment, including especially the way teacher and students relate to one another. Some classrooms have a cold, impersonal, or even antagonistic, climate, while others are warm and friendly. Some are business-like and productive, others disorganized and inefficient.

classroom management The way a teacher organizes and administers routines to make classroom life as productive and satisfying as possible. What some people might describe narrowly as "discipline." For example, teachers with good classroom management clarify how various things (such as distribution of supplies and equipment) are to be done and may even begin the school year by having students practice the expected procedures.

coaching Educators use this term, commonly used in athletics, to refer to any situation in which someone helps someone else learn a skill. The late Mortimer Adler, who devised the Paideia program, maintained that coaching is one of three basic modes of teaching (the other two are presenting and leading discussions). Coaching is also considered an important part of training programs in which teachers learn new teaching methods. A process in which teachers visit each other’s classes to observe instruction and offer feedback is known as peer coaching.

Coalition of Essential Schools A high school-university partnership established at Brown University and founded by Theodore Sizer. The coalition grew out of a study of secondary education sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of Independent Schools. The coalition does not recognize any one school as a model school, believing that schools must be unique to best serve their particular communities, faculties, and students. Instead, coalition schools accept a set of nine governing principles that include helping young people learn to use their minds well; mastering a limited number of essential skills and areas of knowledge, rather than striving for broad content coverage; holding all students accountable for the same goals (using various teaching styles to accommodate the different ways in which students learn); maintaining a teacher-to-student ratio that permits teachers to know students as individuals; and arranging for competitive teacher salaries, as well as substantial planning and training time. The coalition supports the idea that students should demonstrate their mastery of certain skills and knowledge, decided on by the faculty and administrators along with the community, in order to graduate.

Cognitive development The process, which begins at birth, of learning through sensory perception, memory, and observation. Children are born into cultures and backgrounds that affect what they learn as well as how they learn. Children from enriched environments (in which parents and caregivers read to and with them, teach them letters and numbers, and take them to plays and museums) come to school prepared to learn; children from impoverished or abusive backgrounds often lack most or all of these preschool advantages. To stimulate the cognitive development of such children, teachers use strategies such as placing learning into a meaningful context, providing situations in which students can be active participants, and combining general information with specific learning situations.

Cognitive learning The mental processes involved in learning, such as remembering and understanding facts and ideas. Educators have always been interested in how people learn but are now becoming better informed about cognition from the work of cognitive psychologists, who in recent years have compiled a great deal of new information about thinking and learning.

Cohort A particular group of people with something in common. For instance, a cohort might be a group of students who had been taught an interdisciplinary curriculum by a team of junior high school teachers. Researchers might want to track their progress into high school to identify differences in success of students in the cohort compared with students who had attended conventional classes in the same school.

Collaboration A relationship between individuals or organizations that enables the participants to accomplish goals more successfully than they could have separately. Educators are finding that they must collaborate with others to deal with increasingly complex issues. For example, schools and school systems often form partnerships with local businesses or social service agencies. Many schools teach students how to work with others on group projects. Some educators call this collaborative learning, although it is more commonly known as cooperative learning.

Collaborative action research Systematic investigation by two or more teachers of some aspect of their work in order to improve their effectiveness. Action research involves identifying a question or problem and then collecting and analyzing relevant data. (It is called action research because the participants are studying an aspect of their own work and they intend to use the results themselves.) For example, a group of teachers might decide to give their students different assignments according to their assessed learning styles. If the teachers maintained records comparing student work before and after the change, they would be collaborating on action research.

Commercialism The trend, which observers say is growing, to permit commercial advertising in public schools. Traditionally, public schools prohibited commercial advertising; however, in recent years some schools have begun to contract with distributors of particular beverages and to import television programs, such as Channel One, which are specifically designed to present advertising to young people. While advocates argue that advertising in schools is a harmless way of increasing funding, others argue that because students are a captive and impressionable audience, advertising should have no place in the public schools.

Common ground Fundamental values or goals that people agree upon, although they may disagree strongly on other matters. The term is sometimes used to refer to a process for improving communication between public educators and their critics.

Community center schools Organizations that provide services—often including medical and dental services, nutrition classes, parent programs, and social services—as part of the school program for both students and families. Community center schools, sometimes called full-service schools, provide essential services that many families could not otherwise obtain because they lack transportation, information, money, or time. The goals of such programs are to help urban parents feel comfortable with teachers, become a part of the learning community, and support their children’s studies.

Competency tests Tests created by a school district or state that students must pass before graduating. Sometimes called minimum competency tests, such tests are intended to ensure that graduates have reached minimal proficiency in basic skills. In recent years, some states have replaced minimum competency tests adopted in the 1970s or ‘80s with more demanding tests aligned with adopted curriculum standards.

Comprehensive school reform An approach to school improvement that involves adopting a design for organizing an entire school rather than using numerous unrelated instructional programs. New American Schools, an organization that promotes comprehensive school reform, sponsors several different designs, each featuring challenging academic standards, strong professional development programs, meaningful parental and community involvement, and a supportive school environment.

Computer-assisted instruction Educational programs delivered through the use of computers and educational software. As computers have become more common in schools, the term and its abbreviation, CAI, are used less frequently. CAI has a specific meaning as it applies to special-needs students. Many software programs and features have been designed to help students with dyslexia and poor fine-motor skills. Blind students can work on raille keyboards and command the computer to call up their work as synthesized speech or as a raille display. Students with physical challenges can operate computers by activating a switch with their head, foot, mouth, or the blink of an eye.

conflict resolution Programs that teach students how to negotiate problems in a nonviolent way. Core concepts include recognizing that conflict can be a pathway to personal growth, understanding that there are alternative solutions to problems, and learning skills to solve problems effectively. Conflict resolution is often provided through peer mediation, in which children or teens assist other students to work through problems without resorting to violence.

Constructed response Test items on which students must provide an answer (short answer, explanation of the process for determining the answer, etc.) in contrast with items (known as selected response or multiple-choice) on which students choose from among answers provided. Some psychometricians say that selected response items are preferable because they are scored by machine and the results are therefore more reliable. Others, however, believe constructed response items are a better test of what students can actually do.

Constructivism An approach to teaching based on research about how people learn. Many researchers say that each individual “constructs” knowledge rather than receiving it from others. People disagree about how to achieve constructive learning, but many educators believe that students come to understand abstract concepts best through exploration, reasoning, and discussion.

Continuous progress A system of education in which individuals or small groups of students go through a sequence of lessons at their own pace, rather than at the pace of the entire classroom group. Continuous progress has also been called individualized education or individualized instruction and is one version of mastery learning. In continuous-progress programs, able and motivated students are not held back, and students take on new lessons only if they show they have the prerequisite skills. A criticism, however, is that unmotivated students often progress more slowly than they would in regular classes.

Coordinated School Health Programs A model developed by the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion that consists of eight interactive components: health education, physical education, health services, nutrition services, health promotion for staff, counseling and psychological services, healthy school environment, and parent/community involvement. Source: From “A Coordinated School Health Program” by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Retrieved April 2, 2002, from http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/cshpdef.htm.

cooperative learning A teaching strategy combining teamwork with individual and group accountability. Working in small groups, with individuals of varying talents, abilities, and backgrounds, students are given one or more tasks. The teacher or the group often assigns each team member a personal responsibility that is essential to successful completion of the task. Used well, cooperative learning allows students to acquire both knowledge and social skills. The students learn from one another and get to know and respect group members that they may not have made an effort to meet in other circumstances. Studies show that, used properly, cooperative learning boosts student achievement. Schools using this strategy report that attendance improves because the students feel valuable and necessary to their group.

Core curriculum The body of knowledge that all students are expected to learn. High schools often require a core curriculum that may include, for example, four years of English, three years of science and mathematics, two or three years of history, one or two years of a foreign language, and one year of health studies. Courses that are not required are called electives. The term core curriculum was used in the mid-20th century to refer to a block-of-time program (two or more class periods) in which students and their teacher chose the topics they would study, but few of today’s schools have such programs now.

Core knowledge Refers specifically to a reform movement founded by E. D. Hirsch, professor of English at the University of Virginia. The movement is based on the idea that there is a body of knowledge that students and citizens need to know, so school districts should offer a sequential, uniform curriculum. Such a curriculum is outlined in the Core Knowledge Resource Series, a collection of books that specify what students at each grade level should know. Opponents argue that schools should emphasize the process of learning and the skills of gathering information, and place less emphasis on coverage of particular content. Another argument concerns how to determine the content that all students should learn: Who should decide? On what basis? The inclusion of certain topics, literary pieces, or historic events and the exclusion of others raises issues of cultural bias.

Creationism The view that human beings were specifically created by God and did not evolve from other forms of animal life through the process of natural selection. Advocates of scientific creationism believe that the creationist view should be taught alongside evolution in science classes. Opponents argue that creationism is a religious, not a scientific, position. They insist that the only ideas that should be taught in science classes are those that are based on scientific evidence and that are subject to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Criterion-referenced tests Tests designed to measure how thoroughly a student has learned a particular body of knowledge without regard to how well other students have learned it. Most nationally standardized achievement tests are norm-referenced, meaning that a student’s performance is compared to how well students in the norming group did when the test was normed. Criterion-referenced tests are directly related to the curriculum of a particular school district or state and are scored according to fixed criteria.

Critical thinking Logical thinking based on sound evidence; the opposite of biased, sloppy thinking. Some people take the word critical to mean negative and faultfinding, but philosophers consider it to mean thinking that is skillful and responsible. A critical thinker can accurately and fairly explain a point of view that he does not agree with.

Cultural literacy The idea of E. D. Hirsch, professor of English at the University of Virginia, that there is a certain body of knowledge (core knowledge) that people must know to be well-educated, well-rounded American citizens.

Curricula plural of curriculum. May be Anglicized as curriculums.

Curriculum Although this term has many possible meanings, it usually refers to a written plan outlining what students will be taught (a course of study). Curriculum documents often also include detailed directions or suggestions for teaching the content. Curriculum may refer to all the courses offered at a given school, or all the courses offered at a school in a particular area of study. For example, the English curriculum might include English literature, literature, world literature, essay styles, creative writing, business writing, Shakespeare, modern poetry, and the novel. The curriculum of an elementary school usually includes language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and other subjects.

cyber schools Educational institutions, many of them charter schools, that offer most or all of their instruction by computer via the internet. More such schools are being established each year.

D

data-based decision making Analyzing existing sources of information (class and school attendance, grades, test scores) and other data (portfolios, surveys, interviews) to make decisions about the school. The process involves organizing and interpreting the data and creating action plans.

decentralization The deliberate reassignment of decision-making authority from states or districts to local schools based on the beliefs that people who are closest to a situation make better decisions and that people work hardest when implementing their own decisions. The primary vehicle for school decentralization in recent decades has been site-based management, under which decision-making authority has been delegated to local schools, often accompanied by a requirement that schools establish representative school councils.

democratic education Advocates of democratic education believe that students, if they are to acquire the skills, knowledge, and values they need to perform their roles as citizens in a democracy, should receive a type of education that actively engages them as citizens in their own schools and communities. For example, they believe that students should participate in the governance of the school and engage in service-learning activities in their local communities.

democratic purposes of education Historically, one of the primary missions of the public schools in the United States has been to prepare children to perpetuate American democracy. Schools are expected to ensure that all children, regardless of family economic status or future occupation, acquire the skills, knowledge, and civic values they need to perform their roles as citizens in a democracy.

Detracking Reducing or eliminating grouping by ability, resulting in classes with students from all ability levels. The result of detracking is also called heterogeneous rather than homogeneous (or ability) grouping. Strictly speaking, tracking refers to students being lumped into groups for all their classes based on their general ability to learn. Grouping for specific purposes, such as current knowledge of mathematics, is theoretically not tracking, although opponents charge that the practice usually has the same results. Advocates of detracking, also called untracking, point to research indicating that when students are grouped by ability, those in lower tracks are usually taught poorly and don't get exposed to "high-status" knowledge. They see detracking as part of a broader restructuring of schools in which student differences are provided for within each class. Opponents of detracking say ability grouping is easier for teachers and better for students—those who are academically able and should not be held back, and those who are slower and should have attention to their special needs.

developmental screening tests Used to identify students who may have disabilities, sensory impairments (e.g., near-sightedness or reduced hearing), or behavioral and developmental disabilities.

developmentally appropriate education Curriculum and instruction that is in accord with the physical and mental development of the student. Developmentally appropriate education is especially important for young children because their physical and mental abilities change quickly and vary greatly from child to child. For example, some 4-year-old children are able to sit quietly through a group story time, while others become fidgety. This does not necessarily mean that the more active children have ADHD; their neurological functions may simply not have matured as quickly as others in their age group.

differentiated instruction A form of instruction that seeks to "maximize each student's growth by meeting each student where she is and helping the student to progress. In practice, it involves offering several different learning experiences in response to students' varied needs. Learning activities and materials may be varied by difficulty to challenge students at different readiness levels, by topic in response to students' interests, and by students' preferred ways of learning or expressing themselves." Source: Quote from "Lesson 1: What Is Differentiated Instruction?" in ASCD PD Online: Differentiating Instruction, by L. Kiernan [course author], 2000, Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved February 21, 2002, from http://www.ascd.org/pdi/demo/diffinstr/differentiated1.html

differentiated schooling The view that no single form of education is best for all students and all situations. Advocates believe school officials should provide alternative programs and let parents choose among them rather than play "winner take all."

differentiated staffing The practice of having different instructional roles rather than treating all classroom teachers alike. Various people play a part in the teaching process, but their responsibilities and pay may be greater or lesser than regular teachers. Typical roles include teacher aides, paraprofessionals (or assistant teachers), team leaders, and lead teachers.

differentiated supervision A system of supervising teachers that depends on factors including their experience, proven teaching ability, interests, and preferences. Some members of the teaching staff may be involved in clinical supervision (intensive analysis of their teaching based on observations of their classroom teaching), while others may propose and conduct their own professional development plans.

differentiated teaching Providing for a range of student differences in the same classroom by using different learning materials, assigning different tasks, and using other practices, such as cooperative learning.

direct instruction Instruction in which the teacher explains the intended purpose and presents the content in a clear, orderly way. Contrasts with inductive, discovery, or constructive teaching, in which students are led, by means of investigation or discussion, to develop their own ideas.

disaggregated data Test scores or other data divided so that various categories can be compared. For example, schools may break down the data for the entire student population (aggregated into a single set of numbers) to determine how minority students are doing compared with the majority, or how scores of girls compare with those for boys.

discovery learning Learning activities designed so that students discover facts and principles themselves rather than having them explained by a textbook or a teacher. These activities are used most often in science classes where, for example, students can directly observe effects of various substances on other substances and infer possible reasons.

distance learning Taking classes in locations other than the classroom or places where teachers present the lessons. Distance learning uses various forms of technology, especially television and computers, to provide educational materials and experiences to students. Small high schools may arrange for their students to take courses, such as those for advanced foreign language instruction, by television. Many colleges and universities broadcast credit courses for students who live in isolated locations or who for other reasons cannot attend classes on campus.

diversity In education, discussions about diversity involve recognizing a variety of student needs including those of ethnicity, language, socioeconomic class, disabilities, and gender. School reforms attempt to address these issues to help all students succeed. Schools also respond to societal diversity by attempting to promote understanding and acceptance of cultural and other differences.

dropouts Students who leave high school before receiving a diploma. Because it is difficult to keep track of adolescents no longer in school, because students may re-enter schools and drop out again more than once, and because many students eventually get the equivalent of secondary education by means of GED tests, dropout rates are not completely accurate. However, many observers believe that the dropout rate is much higher than it ought to be.

dyslexia A condition that hampers reading ability. Characteristics of dyslexia may include transposing letters and numbers when reading and writing; confusing hand dominance; difficulty in keeping track of the order of time, months, or seasons; hyperactivity; and difficulty with physical coordination and balance. The cause of dyslexia is unknown. Boys are four times more likely than girls to have this learning disability. Students with dyslexia need special resources and learning techniques to progress with their peers.

 

E

early childhood education The education of young children. Many educators think of early childhood education as including children ages 3 through 7. Recent research information about the brain development of infants is causing many specialists to think of this period of rapid learning as beginning at birth.

Edison schools Schools run by the Edison Project, a private organization that contracts with local boards of education. All Edison schools (named to commemorate inventor Thomas Edison) are expected to follow the model developed by a design team headed by Benno Schmidt, former president of Yale University. Features of the model include extensive use of technology, individualized learning plans, teaching of values, and parent and community participation. Originally founded by Christopher Whittle, the Edison Project is an example of the privatization of public schools.

Education Commission of the States A nonprofit organization whose purpose is to help governors, state legislators, state education officials, and others develop policies to improve the quality of education at all levels. The commission was formed in 1965 to help states approach education policy decisions in an organized fashion. Members include 49 states (all but Montana), three territories, and the District of Columbia

effective schools Schools in which all students, especially those from families in poverty, learn at a higher-than-expected level. The idea of effective schools was pioneered in the early 1980s by the late Ronald Edmonds, who compared schools in which children in poverty earned high test scores with other schools that had similar student populations. He found that effective schools had strong principals who closely monitored student achievement and created an orderly environment characterized by high expectations.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) U.S. legislation passed in 1965 that provided large amounts of federal aid to states and local districts as part of the larger War on Poverty. ESEA must be reauthorized periodically by the Congress. The most well-known provision of ESEA is Title I, which targets funding to schools with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged children in order to improve their educational opportunities. The 2002 version requires that states administer annual tests in math and reading for all students in grades 3 through 8; schools failing to produce sufficient improvements in student test scores will be subject to sanctions. Advocates of these testing provisions argue that they are necessary to ensure that all children receive a quality education; others argue, however, that such tests are not an accurate measure of educational quality and that the accountability provisions will compel teachers to teach to the test, narrowing the curriculum and focusing on rote learning.

English as a Second Language (ESL) Teaching English to non-English-speaking or limited-English-proficient (LEP) students to help them learn and succeed in schools. ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) has generally the same meaning as ESL.

English language learner (ELL) A student whose first language is other than English and who is in a special program for learning English (which may be bilingual education or English as a second language).

Enrichment Topics and activities that are valuable and interesting to learn but are not basic education—knowledge that is "nice to know" but not necessarily what people need to know. Examples might include study of Wordsworth's poetry or a biography of Alexander Hamilton, although people will not necessarily agree on what is basic and what is enrichment. The term enrichment is also applied to efforts that parents make to supplement their children's learning outside of school, such as trips to science and art museums, educational vacations, visits to local libraries, and attendance at local theaters, orchestras, or ballets.

environmental education According to the Environmental Education and Training Partnership (EETAP), environmental education "is a learning process that increases people's knowledge and awareness about the environment and associated challenges, develops the necessary skills and expertise to address the challenges, and fosters attitudes, motivations, and commitments to make informed decisions and take responsible action." Although some educators have long argued that environmental education should be an essential part of the school curriculum, the movement to incorporate it has gained ground in recent years as more and more schools have incorporated at least some of its elements. Source: Quote from Definition of EE [Web page], Stevens Point, WI: Environmental Education and Training Partnership. Web page attributes quote to UNESCO, Tbilisi Declaration, 1978. Retrieved February 21, 2002, from http://eetap.org/definitionofee.html

equal access Refers to federal legislation that prohibits public school systems from discriminating against student religious groups. If schools permit other non-curriculum-related student groups, such as a chess club, to meet on school property, they must also permit other voluntary student groups, such as prayer groups, to meet.

equity The goal of equity is to achieve a high-quality education for all students, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disabilities, or special needs. Studies show widespread inequities in financial support, classroom expectations, texts and technological resources, and quality of teaching, especially in inner cities and among poor populations. Because needs are greater in some situations than others, equal treatment is not necessarily equitable.

ESEA See Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

ESL English as a second language. Teaching English to non-English-speaking or limited-English-proficient (LEP) students to help them learn and succeed in schools. ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) has generally the same meaning as ESL.

essential questions Basic questions, such as "What is distinctive about the American experience?" used to provide focus for a course or a unit of study. Such questions need to be derived from vitally important themes and topics whose answers cannot be summarized neatly and concisely.

evolution Refers to the theory of natural selection, which is the basis for modern studies of biology. Creationists oppose the teaching of natural selection in public schools, especially if it is not accompanied by the idea of creationism as an alternative explanation of biological differences.

exemplar An example chosen to illustrate characteristics of a concept. In schools, the term exemplar sometimes refers to samples of student work used to show other students what they are expected to do. An exemplar can also help teachers (and students themselves) evaluate student work when it is completed. For example, a teacher might have students write a letter suitable for publication in the local newspaper commenting on a community issue. The teacher could provide rubrics specifying the criteria for evaluating the letters, along with sample letters (exemplars) written by previous students on a different topic at each level of quality (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1 or A, B, C, D). Exemplars are sometimes called model papers.

exhibitions Demanding projects designed and conducted by high school seniors in schools that are members of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Theodore Sizer, founder of the coalition, proposed the notion of exhibitions in his book Horace's Compromise. Noting that students in 19th century New England secondary schools were expected to present evidence of their learning as a requirement for graduation, he suggested that a similar procedure could make modern high school education more meaningful.

experiential education Education that emphasizes personal experience of the learner rather than learning from lectures, books, and other secondhand sources. Experiential education, sometimes called experiential learning, may take the form of internships, service learning, school-to-work programs, field studies, cross-cultural education, and leadership development.

F

failing schools Schools, almost always located in urban or low-income rural areas, in which an unacceptably low proportion of students meet established standards, as indicated by test scores. Also called low-performing schools. Some observers believe it is unfair to call such schools failing because, they say, the real failure is society's for allowing the social conditions that hamper student learning. Others point out that some schools, called effective schools, succeed in teaching low-income children, so others could do it too. Because policies increasingly focus on such schools, and because test scores usually vary from year to year rather than going steadily up or down, state and national officials have devoted considerable attention to procedures for deciding which schools should be declared failing.

family life education School programs that teach the knowledge and attitudes needed by young people to become responsible members of healthy families, including essential attitudes and knowledge about human sexuality. Family life education programs are often controversial because one person's idea of an essential attitude may be completely unacceptable to someone else.

First Amendment Schools This project, cosponsored by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and the First Amendment Center, is national initiative designed to transform how schools model and teach the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. First Amendment Schools are built on the conviction that the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment are a cornerstone of American democracy and essential for citizenship in a diverse society. First Amendment Schools not only teach the First Amendment but also develop ways to model and apply the democratic first principles.

flexible scheduling Flexible scheduling, or modular scheduling, usually refers to school schedules in which classes are taught for different lengths of time on various days. For the best effect, classes are also different sizes. For example, a lecture may be given to a large group for a relatively short time, but a seminar discussion would have fewer students for a longer class period. Innovative secondary schools tried flexible scheduling in the late 1960s and '70s, but few schools use it today. Many schools do use block scheduling, however, in which all classes meet longer than the traditional 50 minutes.

flipped classroom an instructional approach where student learning and research take place outside of the traditional classroom. Teachers assign reading, work or research for students to do using technology. The students work with the teacher who acts as facilitator to focus on particular areas of knowledge the students need formative test A test given primarily to determine what students have learned in order to plan further instruction. By contrast, an examination used primarily to document students' achievement at the end of a unit or course is considered a summative test.

four by four (4×4) schedule A type of block, or alternative, scheduling used in some secondary schools in place of the usual class periods of about 50 minutes. Students take four 90-minute classes a day, with course changes every 45 days (four times a school year). Students and teachers have fewer classes to prepare for and experience fewer interruptions in the school day. Longer blocks of time allow for more complex learning activities, such as complicated science experiments.

full inclusion The practice of educating all children in the same classroom, including children with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities. Inclusion classes often require a special assistant to the classroom teacher. In a fully inclusive school or classroom, all of the children follow the same schedules; everyone is involved in the same field trips, extracurricular activities, and assemblies. The 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) made inclusion a controversial topic by requiring a free and appropriate education with related services for each child in the least restrictive environment possible, and an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each qualifying child. In 1991 the bill was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the revision broadened the definition of disabilities and added related services. One controversy involves interpreting the phrase "least restrictive environment possible." Supporters of full inclusion interpret the phrase to mean full provisions in the regular school; others advocate case-by-case decisions, considering the individual student and available staff and facilities. For example, some professionals and some parents of children with learning disabilities believe that these children benefit from partial inclusion, with some activities and learning experiences occurring in alternative facilities using different teaching strategies. Inclusion has passionate advocates and adversaries. Opponents, including many parents of children with special needs, feel that the presence of many children with disabilities holds back average and gifted students and that special-needs students are frequently disruptive and are not well-served by inclusion. Advocates of inclusion argue that all students are better served in structured inclusive classrooms—that children with disabilities receive more understanding and respect from their peers and that all students profit from working together.

full-service schools Organizations that provide services, often including medical and dental services, nutrition classes, parent programs, and social services, as part of the school program for both students and families. Sometimes called community center schools, full-service schools provide essential services that many families could not otherwise obtain because they lack transportation, information, money, or time. The goals of such programs are to help urban parents feel comfortable with teachers, become a part of the learning community, and support their children's studies.

functional illiteracy The inability to read or write well enough to perform many necessary tasks in life, such as writing a check, filling out a job application, reading a classified advertisement, or understanding a newspaper headline.

fuzzy math A term used by critics of mathematics instruction that emphasizes estimation, multiple approaches to problem solving, and use of calculators, as recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The critics, including some professors of mathematics, believe children should be expected to learn established mathematical knowledge and procedures.

 

 G

gender bias The idea that one gender or the other is short-changed by school practices and expectations. The term may refer to the difficulties boys tend to have in conforming to classroom routines and learning to read and write, or it may refer to lower average achievement by girls in science, mathematics, and technology. Bias is sometimes suspected when test results consistently favor one gender or the other.

General Educational Development (GED) exam The GED exam is a high school equivalency test that was first developed in 1942. Each year, approximately 800,000 adults receive a GED diploma—sometimes called an equivalency certificate—certifying that they have skills and knowledge equivalent to those of a high school graduate. The program is administered by the Center for Adult Learning and Educational Credentials of The American Council on Education. As of January 2002, the GED consists of five tests that cover language arts-reading, language arts-writing, social studies, science, and mathematics. GED courses are often available in evening adult education programs in local school districts. The tests are given at 3,400 official GED testing centers across North America and elsewhere.

gifted and talented The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) says "a gifted individual is someone who shows, or has the potential for showing, an exceptional level of performance in one or more areas of expression." For example, a person may be exceptionally talented as an artist, a violinist, or a physicist. For much of the twentieth century, giftedness was usually measured by IQ tests, and people who scored in the upper two percent of the population were considered gifted. However, some authorities believe that giftedness is indicated not so much by test scores as by consistently exceptional performance. Federal legislation refers to gifted and talented children as those who show high performance capability in specific academic fields or in areas such as creativity and leadership, and who, to fully develop their capabilities, require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school. Source: Quote from "Who Are the Gifted?" in Parent Information [Web page], Washington, DC: National Association for Gifted Children. Retrieved February 21, 2002, from http://www.nagc.org/ParentInfo/index.html

Goals 2000 The first national goals for education were established initially at a meeting of state governors convened in 1989 by President George Bush and, with minor changes, incorporated into legislation passed in 1994 under President Clinton. The eight goals, none of which were (or could reasonably have been) accomplished, were that by the year 2000 All children in the United States will start school ready to learn. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competence in challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography. Every school in the United States will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in the modern economy. students will be the first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. Every adult citizen will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol, and all will offer a disciplined learning environment conducive to learning. The teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all students for the next century. Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parent involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

governance structure Provisions for making official decisions in an organization. In schools, this refers to the distribution of power among levels of government—including national, state, regional, district, school, and classroom—and roles of various elected officials, administrators, teachers, parents, and students. Opinions differ as to the effectiveness of various governance structures, including the degree to which decision making is centralized or decentralized.

 H

habits of mind Mental attitudes and ways of behaving that contribute to success in life, such as being able to make a plan and follow it or to make decisions based on sound information. The habits of mind sought in the Dimensions of Learning program are grouped under the headings of critical thinking, creative thinking, and self-regulated learning.

Head Start Established in 1965, Head Start is intended to foster healthy development of low-income children to help them succeed in school. Head Start and Early Head Start are federally sponsored, comprehensive child development programs that serve children from birth to age 5 as well as pregnant women and their families. Head Start grantee and delegate agencies offer a range of individualized services in the areas of education and early childhood development; medical, dental, and mental health; nutrition; and parent involvement.

health education A planned, sequential K-12 curriculum that addresses the physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions of health. The curriculum is designed to motivate and help students maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors. It allows students to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices. The comprehensive curriculum includes a variety of topics such as personal health, family health, community health, consumer health, environmental health, sexuality education, mental and emotional health, injury prevention and safety, nutrition, prevention and control of disease, and substance use and abuse. Qualified, trained teachers provide health education. Source: From "A Coordinated School Health Program" by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Retrieved April 2, 2002, from http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/cshpdef.htm.

heterogeneous grouping Intentionally mixing students of varying talents and needs in the same classroom (the opposite of homogeneous grouping). The success of this method, also called mixed-ability grouping, depends on the teacher's skill in differentiating instruction so that all students feel challenged and successful. Advocates say heterogeneous grouping prevents lower-track classes from becoming dumping grounds and ensures that all students have access to high-status content. Opponents say it is difficult for teachers to manage, hampers the brightest children from moving at an accelerated pace, and contributes to watering down the curriculum.

hidden curriculum The habits and values taught in schools that are not specified in the official written curriculum. May refer to what critics see as an overemphasis on obedience, dependence, and conformity.

higher-order thinking Researcher Lauren Resnick has defined higher-order thinking as the kind of thinking needed when the path to finding a solution is not specified, and that yields multiple solutions rather than one. Higher-order thinking requires mental effort because it involves interpretation, self-regulation, and the use of multiple criteria, which may be conflicting. Teachers who seek to develop students' higher-order thinking abilities engage them in analyzing, comparing, contrasting, generalizing, problem solving, investigating, experimenting, and creating, rather than only in recalling information. Other terms used to refer to higher-order thinking include critical thinking, complex reasoning, and thinking skills.

high-stakes tests Tests used to determine which individual students get rewards, honors, or sanctions. Low-stakes tests are used primarily to improve student learning. Tests with high stakes attached include college entrance examinations and tests students must pass to be promoted to the next grade. Tests affecting the status of schools, such as those on which a given percentage of students must receive a passing grade, are also considered high stakes.

holistic learning A theory of education that places importance on the complete experience of learning and the ways in which the separate parts of the learning experience are interrelated. Canadian scholar John Miller defines holistic learning as essentially concerned with connections in human experience, such as the connections among mind and body, rational thought and intuition, various subject matters, and the individual in society.

homeschooling Teaching children at home instead of sending them to public or private schools. Over the past decade, the number of homeschooling families has grown dramatically. In the mid-1980s there were only about 15,000 homeschools, but by 1994 the Department of Education estimated the number at about 345,000. A federal report issued in 2001 estimated that in 1999, the most recent year studied, at least 850,000 students were learning at home; some experts believe the figure may now be more like 1.5 million. If so, homeschooled children would be about 4 percent of the total K-12 population. State laws on the subject vary, but laws are changing rapidly in response to changing conditions. At one time many families chose homeschooling for religious reasons, but more are doing so now because of apparent dissatisfaction with the quality of public education. Families are beginning to network their homeschooling efforts with other families, and in some places, home schools and public schools are working together to benefit all the students. For example, some states and school districts permit homeschooled students to enroll part-time for particular classes or to participate in student activities.

homogeneous grouping Assigning students to separate classes according to their apparent abilities. Placing students in groups for all their classes based supposedly on their general learning ability has been called tracking. For example, college-bound students might have all of their classes together while vocational students and special education students would attend other classes. In its most extreme form, tracking has been declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court and is considered a violation of students' civil rights. Alternatively, students may be grouped according to their achievement in particular subjects. For example, a student might be in an above-average science course but an average English course. Strictly speaking, this form of ability grouping is not tracking, although the results may be similar, so opponents sometimes call it tracking anyway. Proponents of ability grouping believe it allows students to excel within their levels. Less capable students are not intimidated by their more capable peers, and gifted students are not bored by the slower pace considered necessary for regular students. Critics say tracking is undemocratic, allows unequal access to higher-level content, and creates low self-esteem. Opponents also say that students who learn more slowly become subject to lower expectations from teachers.

 I

IB See international baccalaureate.

illiteracy Lack of the skills needed in a literate society. Whereas literacy once meant minimal ability to read and write, the term is now used to refer to many types of knowledge and skills, such as computer literacy. People may also speak of scientific, mathematical, economic, or musical literacy.

immersion As used in bilingual education programs, immersion means having students learn a second language by speaking, hearing, and reading it all day (or part of the day), including being taught several subjects in that language. If all students speak the same language, as they usually do in bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking students, the lessons are constructed around the students' language competencies, and the instructor is fluent in both the students' language and the language being learned. Immersion programs in the United States are usually for non-English speakers, but some enrichment immersion programs are designed for English speakers to learn a second language.

inclusion The practice of educating all children in the same classroom, including children with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities. Inclusion classes often require a special assistant to the classroom teacher. In a fully inclusive school or classroom, all of the children follow the same schedules; everyone is involved in the same field trips, extracurricular activities, and assemblies. The 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) made inclusion a controversial topic by requiring a free and appropriate education with related services for each child in the least restrictive environment possible, and an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each qualifying child. In 1991 the bill was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the revision broadened the definition of disabilities and added related services. One controversy involves interpreting the phrase "least restrictive environment possible." Supporters of full inclusion interpret the phrase to mean full provisions in the regular school; others advocate case-by-case decisions, considering the individual student and available staff and facilities. For example, some professionals and some parents of children with learning disabilities believe that these children benefit from partial inclusion, with some activities and learning experiences occurring in alternative facilities using different teaching strategies. Inclusion has passionate advocates and adversaries. Opponents, including many parents of children with special needs, feel that the presence of many children with disabilities holds back average and gifted students and that special-needs students are frequently disruptive and are not well-served by inclusion. Advocates of inclusion argue that all students are better served in structured inclusive classrooms—that children with disabilities receive more understanding and respect from their peers and that all students profit from working together.

indicator A statistic, such as the percentage of students attending school daily, used as evidence of success in accomplishing an abstract goal, such as student interest in learning. The long-term results of education are difficult to measure, so people use measurable indicators—such as drop-out rates, honors won, and test scores—to help judge school quality.

individualized education Also called individualized instruction, the practice of giving lessons and assignments according to each student's needs and strengths. Students work at their own pace, so ideally, slow students master prerequisite knowledge before moving on and fast learners move ahead without waiting for others. However, such programs require self-explanatory instructional materials and extensive record keeping, which, before the invention of personal computers, caused management problems. Now, some schools use fully developed computer-based individualized programs called integrated learning systems.

Individualized Education Program (IEP) Students with certain special needs, as specified by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), have a legal right to a special plan written by a multidisciplinary team. After a series of tests and observations determine the child's need for an IEP, a team (generally including a special education teacher, a classroom teacher, a building principal, a psychologist, and the child's parents or guardians) designs a program of services to blend the best methods of teaching with the most conducive learning environment for the child. The process of creating the IEP allows the parties to discuss and resolve any differences of opinions and needs. The document specifies the decisions and anticipated outcomes, and it includes the child's current level of educational performance, specific services to be provided, who will provide those services and when, the amount of time the child will be in regular and special classrooms, and short- and long-term goals. The IEP objectives are used to determine the child's progress toward the goals. A well-written, carefully developed IEP protects the child because schools are legally responsible for implementing it.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) A revision of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the IDEA is a federal law passed in 1991 and amended in 1997 that guarantees a free appropriate public education for eligible children and youth with disabilities. According to the law, a child with a disability means a child with mental retardation, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities.

information literacy The ability to use a variety of sources, including computers, to locate desired information.

inservice Also written as in-service, this is the continuing education needed by people in most professions when they have completed their preservice training and are employed. In education, inservice training or education is now usually called staff development or professional development.

integrated curriculum A way of teaching and learning that does not depend on the usual division of knowledge into separate subjects. Topics are studied because they are considered interesting and valuable by the teachers and students concerned, not necessarily because they appear in a required course of study. Both integrated curriculum and interdisciplinary curriculum are intended to help students see connections, but unlike an integrated curriculum, an interdisciplinary curriculum draws its content from two or more identifiable disciplines.

integrated language arts A way of teaching reading (including phonics), grammar, handwriting, spelling, and other language skills together rather than as separate subjects. Students spend their instructional time reading, writing, listening, and speaking; teachers teach skills as they are needed. Critics contend that students may miss important information and skills without systematic instruction. Proponents of integrated language arts say that teaching skills in context is more interesting and meaningful to students and therefore more effective.

integrated learning systems Computer-based systems that provide interactive instruction to individual students and maintain records of each student's progress. Sophisticated systems adapt the level of instruction to the student's achievement, giving slower students additional help and moving successful students to more challenging levels.

interactive learning Occurs when the source of instruction communicates directly with the learner, shaping responses to the learner's needs. Tutoring—one teacher teaching a single student—is highly interactive. Computers and other modern technological applications have made it theoretically possible to provide effective interactive instruction to any learner on any subject.

interdisciplinary curriculum A way of organizing the curriculum in which content is drawn from two or more subject areas to focus on a particular topic or theme. Rather than studying literature and social studies separately, for example, a class might study a unit called The Sea, reading poems and stories about people who spend their lives on or near the ocean, learning about the geography of coastal areas, and investigating why coastal and inland populations have different livelihoods. Effective interdisciplinary studies have the following elements: A topic that lends itself to study from several points of view. One or more themes (or essential questions) the teacher wants the students to explore. Activities intended to further students' understanding by establishing relationships among knowledge from more than one discipline or school subject. Interdisciplinary curriculum, which draws content from particular disciplines that are ordinarily taught separately, is different from integrated curriculum, which involves investigation of topics without regard to where, or even whether, they appear in the typical school curriculum at all.

international baccalaureate (IB) International baccalaureate, a rigorous, pre-university course of study that leads to examinations accepted by more than 100 countries for university admission. In the Diploma Programme, candidates for IB diplomas study languages, sciences, mathematics, and humanities in the final two years of secondary schooling. The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) now also offers the Middle Years Programme for students ages 11–16 and the Primary Years Programme for students ages 3–12. The headquarters of the International Baccalaureate Organization is in Geneva, Switzerland, but the IBO also maintains regional offices around the world. The idea for an IB grew from concerns of schools that had to prepare students to take university entrance exams in different countries. In 1962 the International Schools Association began to explore the creation of an international standard examination, and by 1970 the first exam was offered to 20 schools. The IB is now offered by more than 1,000 schools. Schools must meet certain criteria to offer IB curriculum and to administer the examination. Students can take the IB exam only if they are enrolled in an authorized school.

invented spelling The way young children write some words when they have not yet mastered all the conventions of English spelling. Most children, if encouraged to write when they don't yet know how to spell every word, will try to use simple phonetic principles. For example, they might write "muthr" for "mother" or "reed" for "read." Some language arts specialists say invented spelling is a natural, positive way for children to learn to write. Critics think children should be expected to spell correctly from the beginning.

IQ Intelligence quotient—a number derived by dividing a child's "mental age" (derived from her score on an intelligence test) by her actual age. IQ is based on the principle that children who score well on intelligence tests have mental ability comparable to older children who are only average. A child whose performance would be expected for his age has an IQ of 100. A child with mental ability considerably higher than his actual age might have an IQ of 130. The term "IQ" is no longer used as frequently as it used to be, but intelligence tests continue to be scored using the familiar scale.

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lead teachers Teachers who have broader responsibilities and higher salaries than other teachers but who continue to work with students as regular classroom teachers, at least part time. The idea for lead teachers was proposed as a way to improve the quality of schooling in 1986 in the report A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century from a task force that included leaders of the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and leaders in business and government. The task force noted that education is different from most professions in that opportunities for career advancement are relatively limited. Despite various efforts to improve the status and rewards of teaching, few of today’s teachers hold positions that could be considered lead teacher roles.

Learning disability A condition that interferes with a student’s ability to learn. Even the definition of this term is controversial. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act amended in 1997 defines a specific learning disability as “a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which disorder may manifest itself in imperfect ability to listen, think, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. Such term may include such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.” Children not included under this provision include those who have learning problems which are “primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.”

learning disorder Another term for learning disability, a condition that interferes with a student's ability to learn. For example, some people have dyslexia, which simply means reading disability. People with this condition have difficulty distinguishing among letters of the alphabet and translating words on paper into meaningful language.

Learning First Alliance (LFA) An alliance of 12 national education organizations devoted to improving public education. The LFA seeks to align priorities, share and disseminate success stories, encourage collaboration at every level, and work toward long-term systemic change based on solid research evidence. It represents more than 10 million individuals engaged in providing, governing, and improving U.S. public schools at the local, state, and national levels. It is the only national coalition focused on improving elementary and secondary education in public schools to involve chief executive officers and elected leadership of the major national organizations representing parents, teachers, curriculum specialists, school principals, administrators, school boards, state boards of education, chief state school officers, schools, colleges, and departments.

learning styles Differences in the way students learn more readily. Scholars have devised numerous ways of classifying style differences, including cognitive style (the way a person tends to think about a learning situation), tendency to use particular senses (seeing, hearing, touching), and other characteristics, such as whether the person prefers to work independently or with others. Advocates interpret research as showing that teaching underachievers in ways that complement their strengths can significantly increase their scores on standardized tests. For example, strongly auditory students learn and recall information when they hear it, whereas kinesthetic youngsters learn best through activities such as role playing or floor games.

least restrictive environment A phrase used in the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA) to describe the type of setting schools should provide for students with disabilities. The phrase is generally understood to mean that such children should be assigned to regular, rather than special, classrooms to the extent that they can profit from being there and do not interfere too much with the education of others. Opinions differ greatly over what this should mean for particular children, as well as for such children in general.

LEP students See limited English proficient (LEP) students.

lifelong learning The idea that, because people in the modern world must continue learning all their lives, schools should teach children how to learn rather than (or in addition to) teaching them fundamental knowledge and skills. Also refers to changing the mission of public schools from teaching only children through age 18 to providing educational opportunities to people of all ages.

limited-English-proficient (LEP) students Students who are reasonably fluent in another language but who have not yet achieved comparable mastery in reading, writing, listening, or speaking English. LEP students are often assigned to bilingual education or English-as-a-second-language (ESL) classes.

looping An informal term for assigning students to the same teacher for more than one school year. Rather than teaching a new group of students at the same grade level each year, teachers stay with the same group of students as they move from grade to grade. The practice is rare in the United States, but has been common for years in some parts of Europe and is now being tried in some schools in the United States. Advocates say it provides for more continuous learning because teachers don't have to take time to learn about an entirely new group of students each year.

low-performing schools Schools, almost always located in urban or low-income rural areas, in which an unacceptably low proportion of students meet established standards, as indicated by test scores. Also called failing schools. Some observers believe it is unfair to call such schools failing because, they say, the real failure is society's for allowing the social conditions that hamper student learning. Others point out that some schools, called effective schools, succeed in teaching low-income children, so others could do it too. Because policies increasingly focus on such schools, and because test scores usually vary from year to year rather than going steadily up or down, state and national officials have devoted considerable attention to procedures for deciding which schools should be declared low-performing.

 

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magnet schools Alternative public schools, most of which focus on a particular area of study, such as performing arts or science and technology but also offer regular school subjects. Students from any part of the school district may enroll and the schools often have waiting lists. Most magnet schools were originally established by large urban school districts to help achieve racial desegregation, so they have entrance requirements intended to maintain racial balance. Some magnet schools have other entry requirements, such as achievement in the school's area of concentration, but others do not.

mainstreaming The practice of placing students with disabilities into regular classrooms. The students usually also receive some assistance and instruction in separate classrooms, often called resource rooms. (Programs in which students with disabilities spend all or nearly all of their time in regular classrooms are called inclusion or full inclusion programs. Mainstreaming is also known as partial inclusion.) Experts say successful mainstreaming requires regular communication and cooperation among teachers, students, and parents. Individualized Education Programs need to be jointly developed, thoroughly understood, and carefully followed. The classroom teacher may need special training and assistance from the special education staff. Mainstreaming is also more effective when regular students are given information about their peers with special needs.

manipulatives Learning materials designed to help students understand abstract ideas by handling physical objects. An abacus is a mathematics manipulative.

mastery learning A way of organizing instruction that tries to ensure that students have mastered each increment of a subject before going on to the next. The idea assumes that a subject can be subdivided into sequential steps organized hierarchically. The classic mastery learning model formulated by psychologist Benjamin Bloom calls for teachers to teach a unit of work and give a formative test. Students who do not master the material study it in a different way while the mastery students do enrichment work. Then all students take a summative test, which nearly all students are expected to pass.

measurement error The calculated amount by which a test score may vary from the student's theoretical "true" score (no test can be exact in measuring a student's ability).

mediation This term has at least two quite different meanings. One refers to the recourse taken by school boards when teacher contract negotiations halt. Mediation over contract specifications is binding arbitration in some states, meaning that the board and union must accept the terms negotiated. In other situations involving conflict resolution, a mediator is a neutral party who works between the two conflicting parties and attempts to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. Israeli psychologist Reuven Feuerstein, developer of the Instrumental Enrichment program, uses the term mediation to refer to the interactive process by which a teacher promotes the cognitive development of students.

mentor A role model who offers support to another person. A mentor has knowledge and experience in an area and shares it with the person being mentored. For example, an experienced teacher might mentor a student teacher or beginning teacher. Some student mentoring programs are designed to help at-risk students succeed in school. Acting as role models, mentors spend time with individual students once or twice a week—encouraging, listening, making suggestions, and taking the student to events, activities, or the mentor's place of employment to help the student learn about a career and consider further education.

merit pay A system that recognizes teachers or principals who are thought to be especially capable by paying them higher salaries. Conventional merit pay, based on judgments made by supervisors or peers, is controversial because the grounds for awarding it are necessarily subjective. Because students learn in different ways and teachers and principals have different styles, some people believe it is unfair to regard one competent teacher or principal as better than another. Most current versions of merit pay, known as pay for performance, are tied to student achievement. Merit pay is uncommon even though many noneducators argue for it. Many educators believe it encourages competition rather than cooperation among teachers and principals and tends to reward a few teachers and principals at the expense of others.

metacognition The ability to be conscious of and, to some degree, control one's own thinking. Educators have come to use the prefix "meta" to refer to the application of a process to the process itself. (For example, meta-analysis is analysis of a large number of research studies on a particular topic.) In this case, cognition is thinking, so metacognition means thinking about one's own thinking. You are using metacognition when you can track your progress in solving a multistep problem or when you realize that you have been looking at a page in a book without following the meaning and backtrack until you find the place where your mind began to wander.

middle schools Schools for students in the early adolescent years between elementary school and high school. Most middle schools include grades 5 through 8 or 6 through 8. Middle school advocates say that young adolescents have special needs because of their rapid growth and change. They say middle schools should have team teaching, interdisciplinary curriculum, advisory systems, and other provisions for personalization. Most junior high schools, which have traditionally included grades 7 through 9, do not have these features.

minimum competency tests Tests created by a school district or state that students must pass before graduating. In the 1970s, some states devised minimum competency tests intended to ensure that high school graduates had achieved minimal proficiency in basic skills. In recent years, states have often replaced minimum competency tests with more demanding tests aligned with adopted curriculum standards.

mixed-ability grouping Intentionally mixing students of varying talents and needs in the same classroom. The success of this method, also called heterogeneous grouping, depends on the teacher's skill in differentiating instruction so that all students feel challenged and successful. Advocates say mixed-ability grouping prevents lower-track classes from becoming dumping grounds and ensures that all students have access to high-status content. Opponents say it is difficult for teachers to manage, hampers the brightest students from moving at an accelerated pace, and contributes to a watered-down curriculum.

multi-age grouping The practice of having children of different ages in the same classroom, rather than assigning them to age-graded classrooms (e.g., 6-year-old children to 1st grade and 7-year-old children to 2nd grade). Multi-age grouping is practiced more often in elementary schools than in secondary schools. A typical grouping is children ages 5–7 as primary students and children ages 8–10 as intermediate students. The reason for combining two or more grade levels is that students can be grouped with others who are at the same developmental level regardless of age. In other words, they can learn at a faster or slower pace without being made to feel abnormal.

multicultural education Schooling that helps students understand and relate to cultural, ethnic, and other diversity, including religion, language, gender, age, and socioeconomic, mental, and physical differences. Multiculturalism is intended to encourage people to work together and to celebrate differences, not to be separated by them. However, the field itself is controversial. Opponents of multicultural education feel that it detracts from students' knowledge of American history and commitment to traditional values, especially patriotism. Supporters feel that a multicultural approach provides a more balanced look at history and the world, and that studying several viewpoints increases students' depth of understanding. Some multiculturalists believe that a natural first step toward helping students appreciate other cultures is first to focus on the students' own cultures. For example, they believe an Afrocentric curriculum gives African-American students pride in their cultural heritage. Other advocates believe that emphasizing the differences between groups promotes fragmentation and rivalries. They see multicultural education as a process that encourages teachers to integrate various cultures' beliefs, music, language, and social skills into each school subject, as appropriate.

multidisciplinary curriculum Refers to curriculum in more than one discipline or subject area. People may use this term and related ones differently, but, in general, a multidisciplinary curriculum is one in which the same topic (e.g., harmony) is studied from the viewpoint of more than one discipline (e.g., music, history, and literature). For example, students may study weather using a variety of disciplines. They might study the current science behind measuring air pressure, learn about the history of weather prediction, and read and write poetry about weather.

multimedia presentations Presentations that use more than one medium to communicate information. For example, a CD-ROM that combines text, pictures, sound, voice, animation, and video is multimedia. Multimedia presentations may be used by teachers to cover new subject matter or by students to present projects.

multiple intelligences A theory of intelligence developed in the 1980s by Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. Gardner defines intelligence broadly as "the capacity to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting." He originally identified seven intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. He later suggested the existence of several others, including naturalist, spiritual, and existential. Everyone has all the intelligences, but in different proportions. Teachers who use a multiple-intelligences approach strive to present subject matter in ways that allow students to use several intelligences. For example, they might teach about the Civil War using songs from that period or teach the solar system by having students physically act out the rotation of planets around the sun. Source: Quote from "Multiple Intelligences Go to School: Educational Implications of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences," by H. Gardner & T. Hatch, 1989, in Educational Researcher, 18(8), 4–9.

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National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) NAEP (pronounced "nape"), is also known as The Nation's Report Card. It is a federally funded program (currently contracted to Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.) that provides information about the achievement of students nationally and state-by-state. NAEP tests a representative sample of students in grades 4, 8, and 12 each year and reports the results to the public.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) An independent, nonprofit organization that awards national certification to teachers who successfully complete a set of rigorous assessments. Teachers voluntarily apply for national certification, which complements, but does not replace, state licensing. State licensing systems specify minimum requirements, including entry-level standards for novice teachers. National Board certification establishes advanced standards for experienced teachers. A majority of members of the 63-member board are classroom teachers. Created in 1987 as recommended in a Carnegie Forum report called A Nation Prepared, NBPTS has developed standards that describe accomplished teaching in numerous subjects and at various levels, as well as multipart performance-based assessments designed to measure the standards. There are currently about 10,000 National Board certified teachers in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

National Education Association (NEA) One of the two large teacher unions (the other is the American Federation of Teachers). NEA describes itself as America's oldest and largest organization committed to advancing the cause of public education. Founded in 1857 in Philadelphia and now headquartered in Washington, D.C., NEA has more than 2.5 million members who work at every level of education, from preschool to university graduate programs. It also has affiliates in every state and in more than 13,000 local communities across the United States.

national goals The first national goals for education were established initially at a meeting of state governors convened in 1989 by President George Bush and, with minor changes, incorporated into legislation passed in 1994 under President Clinton. The eight goals, none of which were (or could reasonably have been) accomplished, were that by the year 2000 All children in the United States will start school ready to learn. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competence in challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography. Every school in the United States will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in the modern economy. students will be the first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. Every adult citizen will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol, and all will offer a disciplined learning environment conducive to learning. The teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all students for the next century. Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parent involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.

NCTM standards A description of what students should be expected to learn in mathematics classes published originally in 1989 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The mathematics standards became the model for other subject matter organizations that developed standards in the early 1990s. Those standards were not adopted by the federal government, so instead they are used primarily for reference rather than for official purposes. For example, many of standards adopted by most states in the mid and later 1990s were at least partly derived from the national standards.

NEA See National Education Association.

neighborhood schools The idea that children should be able to attend the public schools nearest their homes. School district boundaries are usually drawn to provide for this, although choice plans let parents decide which schools their children will attend. Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1956 outlawing segregated schools, many public school systems, especially those in large northern cities, adopted or were ordered by courts to implement desegregation plans under which some children were bused to schools away from their homes. Opponents of such plans called for neighborhood schools instead.

New American Schools A nonprofit, nonpartisan, business-led organization promoting comprehensive school reform in more than 3,500 schools across the United States. Launched in 1991, New American Schools is supported by corporations, foundations, and the U.S. Department of Education. It sponsors design teams who help schools improve student performance by implementing one of several (currently 10) different research-based designs for organizing an entire school. Although the designs differ in their approach to teaching and learning, they all emphasize challenging academic standards, strong professional development programs, meaningful parental and community involvement, and a supportive school environment.

New Standards A joint project begun in 1990 of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1996, New Standards released a comprehensive set of internationally benchmarked performance standards in mathematics, English language arts, science, and applied learning at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. These were the first integrated set of performance standards in these subject areas developed for national use in the United States. In addition to the standards, the project has also developed a performance assessment system—available in published form as the New Standards Reference Examinations—tied to the standards. Several thousand schools in about 20 states were involved in creation of the standards and assessments.

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) See "Elementary and Secondary Education Act."

nongraded school A way of organizing schools that uses individual student progress to determine when students move from one level of schooling to another. In a nongraded (also called ungraded) primary school, some students take longer than others to move into 4th grade from a primary-level multi-age classroom (kindergarten through 3rd grade). Students are not classified by grade levels and not evaluated using traditional letter grades (A, B, C, D, F), but their achievement is carefully monitored. As part of a major school reform in Kentucky, all schools in that state are expected to have a nongraded primary school. The idea is that children ages 5–8 can progress at their own pace without fear of failure, and that they learn best through well-planned activities appropriate to each child's level of development.

norm-referenced tests Standardized tests designed to measure how a student's performance compares with that of other students. Most standardized achievement tests are norm-referenced, meaning that a student's performance is compared to the performances of students in a norming group. Scores on norm-referenced tests are often reported in terms of grade-level equivalencies or percentiles derived from the scores of the original students.

 O

OBE See outcome-based education.

opportunity-to-learn standards Ensuring that all students have the resources and conditions they need to reach the same high performance standards. In the mid 1990s, when professional organizations were developing content standards that most people expected would eventually be adopted by the federal government, some educators and politicians argued for parallel adoption of opportunity-to-learn standards, also known as school delivery standards. They contended that if governments proposed to specify minimum standards for what students should know and be able to do, they should also specify what schools must provide students, including curriculum, instruction, and classroom equipment. Opponents argued that they did not want to impose specific requirements but preferred to let local schools decide how best to meet the standards. In the end, standards were not adopted nationally but by the states, which already had minimum requirements, some of which might be interpreted as providing opportunity-to-learn.

outcome-based education (OBE) An approach to schooling that makes outcomes—intended results—the key factor in planning and creating educational experiences. In the 1990s, some states and local school systems announced plans to drop some conventional requirements, such as using Carnegie units to measure the amount of learning, and instead to organize instruction around intended outcomes, such as teaching students to be "collaborative workers." Adherents said their intention was to emphasize actual student accomplishment (outcomes) rather than traditional measures of school quality, such as course offerings and teacher qualifications (inputs). They said that the amount of time spent learning and other factors, such as what the student does in order to learn, should depend on the outcome to be achieved. In conventional schooling, they said, time is fixed and outcomes are variable. Instead, outcomes should be fixed and time should be variable. The OBE movement grew from a concern that students were graduating from high school without having mastered the basic knowledge and skills needed to participate in adult society. Adherents proposed that students should be expected to demonstrate what they had learned and that high school graduation should be based on such demonstrated learning. However, opponents, including some religiously oriented groups, severely criticized OBE as an expression of educators' penchant for social engineering at the expense of academics and basic skills. The term outcomes became unpopular with politicians and school officials. As a result, few educators currently describe their reform efforts as outcome-based.

outcomes Intended results of schooling: What students are supposed to know and be able to do. Educators and others may use the term outcomes to mean roughly the same as goals, objectives, or standards; however, the word "outcomes" is associated with the idea of outcome-based education, which was controversial in the 1990s and is therefore avoided by most school systems today.

 

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Paideia An approach to school reform proposed by the late philosopher Mortimer Adler in The Paideia Proposal in 1982. Unlike many reform ideas that try to individualize the curriculum to fit each student’s needs and strengths, Paideia calls for all students to study a single rigorous curriculum. The only elective is foreign language. The Paideia curriculum calls for three methods of learning: didactic teaching (lecture), the Socratic method (in which a teacher uses directed questioning to help students arrive at desirable answers), and coaching.

Parent Teacher Association See PTA.

Pedagogy The art of teaching—especially the conscious use of particular instructional methods. If a teacher uses a discovery approach rather than direct instruction, for example, she is using a different pedagogy.

Peer mediation Programs in which students assist other students to work through problems without resorting to violence. In such programs, selected students—or sometimes all the students—are taught conflict resolution skills: how to negotiate problems in a nonviolent way. Designated mediators may then patrol school grounds, especially playgrounds, and intervene when they see a conflict or the threat of a conflict.

Performance assessment A form of assessment that is designed to assess what students know through their ability to perform certain tasks. For example, a performance assessment might require a student to serve a volleyball, solve a particular type of mathematics problem, or write a short business letter to inquire about a product as a way of demonstrating that they have acquired new knowledge and skills. Advocates believe such assessments—sometimes called performance-based assessments—provide a more accurate indication of what students can do than traditional assessments, which might require a student to fill in the blank, indicate whether a statement is true or false, or select a right answer from multiple given choices. Evaluating students through task performance can be more time-consuming and therefore more expensive. Most large-scale assessments (such as state testing programs) use this form of assessment sparingly, if at all. But many educators believe it is worth the extra cost because it provides a more accurate and realistic picture of student learning.

Performance tasks Activities, exercises, or problems that require students to show what they can do. Some performance tasks are intended to assess a skill, such as solving a particular type of mathematics problem. Others are designed to have students demonstrate their understanding by applying knowledge. For example, students might be given a current political map of Africa showing the names and locations of countries and a similar map from 1945 and be asked to explain the differences and similarities. To be more authentic (more like what someone might be expected to do in the adult world), the task might be to prepare a newspaper article explaining the changes. Performance tasks often have more than one acceptable solution. They may call for a student to create a response to a problem and then explain or defend it. Performance tasks are considered a type of assessment (used instead of, or in addition to, conventional tests), but they may also be used as learning activities.

Personalization Schooling that emphasizes the needs of students as individual human beings. To personalize learning, teachers must be able to adapt to students’ particular interests and styles, so they must know students well. The term is sometimes used to contrast personalization with individualized instruction, which may be considered more technical and procedural. Some of the ways schools may try to achieve personalization include small classes, advisory systems, independent study, and student-parent-teacher conferences.

Phonics The relationship between the basic sounds of a language (phonemes) and the way those sounds are represented by symbols (letters of the alphabet). Many people see phonics as a method of teaching reading that begins with the study of individual letter sounds (44 basic sounds in English), progressing to words that contain those sounds, and only then to reading the words in stories. This approach, which might be described as systematic phonics, is opposite in theory and technique from the whole-language approach, which involves learning skills in the context of meaningful reading and writing. Most school reading programs are a compromise between these extremes. Teachers teach sound-letter correspondences but also have students spend part of their time on related reading and writing activities.

Portfolio A collection of student work chosen to exemplify and document a student’s learning progress over time. Just as professional artists assemble portfolios of their work, students are often encouraged or required to maintain a portfolio illustrating various aspects of their learning. Some teachers specify what items students should include, while others let students decide. Portfolios are difficult to score reliably and may be a logistical problem for teachers, but advocates say they encourage student reflection and are a more descriptive and accurate indicator of student learning than grades or changes in test scores.

Privatized schools Public schools run by a for-profit company, usually under contract with the local board of education or some other government agency. Advocates believe that failing schools can benefit from more efficient management and from competition. Opponents dislike the idea that the corporations make money by educating children and argue that the profits should instead be used for teachers, equipment, and supplies.

Problem-based learning An approach to curriculum and teaching that involves students in solution of real-life problems rather than conventional study of terms and information. Developed in leading medical schools, problem-based learning begins with a real problem that connects to the student’s world, such as how to upgrade a local waste treatment plant. Student teams organize their methods and procedures around specifics of the problem, not around subject matter as such. Students explore various avenues before arriving at a solution to present to the class. Teachers report that students using problem-based learning become more interested in their studies, more motivated to explore in-depth, and more likely to see the value of the lesson. Problems are chosen for their appropriateness and power to illuminate core concepts in the curriculum. They must be carefully selected to ensure that students learn the intended content.

professional development Also known as staff development, this term refers to experiences, such as attending conferences and workshops, that help teachers and administrators build knowledge and skills.

project method Teaching by engaging students in a long-term activity in which they gather information and develop a product of some kind, such as a written report, oral presentation, or model. Some educators believe that students learn more, understand the content more thoroughly, and remember information and skills longer when they work on a project.

PTA With a membership of nearly 6.5 million, National PTA (also known as Parent Teacher Association) is a nonprofit organization of parents, teachers, students, and others that encourages parental and public involvement in the schools, advocates for children, and assists parents in developing parenting skills.

public engagement Involving members of the public in understanding public education but also providing for their active participation in decision making. In recent years, advocates have used the term "engagement" rather than "public relations" or "public information" because the older terms are identified (perhaps unfairly) with one-way rather than two-way communication. Advocates of public engagement envision a more balanced, trusting relationship between school officials and their constituents.

pull-out programs Programs that provide assistance (often remediation) to individual children by "pulling them out" of regular classes. Because doing this results in children missing instruction that their classmates receive, such programs can put these children at a disadvantage, especially because they were already those most in need. For this reason—even though some such programs have been quite effective—pull-out programs are now discouraged in federal policy, with comprehensive school reform favored instead.

Pygmalion effect The effect of teacher expectations on student performance. The term refers to a Greek myth that was the forerunner of the musical My Fair Lady, in which a teacher transforms an uneducated person into a proper lady. Extensive research has documented that student achievement can be affected by what students' teachers think they can do.

Q

qualitative research Research that uses methods adapted from anthropology and other social sciences, including systematic observation and interviews. Until recently, most educational research was quantitative. Some researchers are now using qualitative methods because they think statistical processes will not produce the understandings they seek. For example, a researcher might spend an entire year visiting a particular school; observing classes, meetings, and conversations; and seeking to identify the way decisions are made and the roles played by various staff members.

quantitative research Research conducted in a traditional scientific manner using statistical procedures to compare the effects of one treatment with another. For example, a researcher might compare test scores of students taught using an experimental method with the scores of students taught in a more conventional way. Some researchers now see this approach as limited, so make greater use of qualitative research methods.

  

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reconstituting schools Renewing schools with excessively low student achievement by replacing the administrators and most or all teachers. School officials and legislators have begun to use this strategy, usually in large urban school systems, when it appears that other approaches to school improvement are not having an effect. Teacher unions often oppose reconstitution because it suggests that staff members, rather than social conditions, are primarily to blame for low-performing schools. The strategy has sometimes been successful, but only when the school system has been able to recruit a strong new leader and unusually capable teachers. Under the circumstances, this is often very difficult.

reliability In testing, an estimate of how closely the results of a test would match if the test were given repeatedly to the same student under the same conditions (and there was no practice effect).

remedial education Education intended to remedy a situation; that is, to teach students what they should already have learned. For example, reading classes at the high school or college level are considered remedial because most students learn to read in elementary school. The success of remedial education depends on several factors, including the teacher's approach and expectations, the instructional materials used, and the students' motivation to learn.

resource room A special education classroom where students can go for additional help mastering academic skills. Some schools offer this resource to any student who desires help in a given subject area, but usually students with learning disabilities or other special needs are assigned to the resource room for a certain number of hours each week.

restructuring The implementation of new organizational patterns or styles of leadership and management to bring about renewed, more effective schools. The term restructuring was widely used by educators and reformers in the early 1990s but is less common now. It can mean reorganizing the school day or year and changing conventional practices, such as grouping students by age for an entire school year or giving competitive grades. Or it may refer to changing the roles of teachers and administrators, allocating more decision-making power to teachers, and involving parents in decisions.

rubric Specific descriptions of performance of a given task at several different levels of quality. Teachers use rubrics to evaluate student performance on performance tasks. Students are often given the rubric, or may even help develop it, so they know in advance what they are expected to do. For example, the content of an oral presentation might be evaluated using the following rubric: Level 4—The main idea is well developed, using important details and anecdotes. The information is accurate and impressive. The topic is thoroughly developed within time constraints. Level 3—The main idea is reasonably clear and supporting details are adequate and relevant. The information is accurate. The topic is adequately developed within time constraints but is not complete. Level 2—The main idea is not clearly indicated. Some information is inaccurate. The topic is supported with few details and is sketchy and incomplete. Level 1—A main idea is not evident. The information has many inaccuracies. The topic is not supported with details.

 S

sampling In testing programs, a way of estimating how a whole group would perform on a test by testing representative members of the group or giving different portions of the test to various subgroups (matrix sampling).

scaffolding The way a teacher provides support to make sure students succeed at complex tasks they couldn't do otherwise. Most teaching is done as the students go about the task, rather than before they start. For example, as a group of elementary students proceed to publish a student newspaper, the teacher shows them how to conduct interviews, write news stories, and prepare captions for photographs. Because the teacher supports the students to make sure they don't fail in their effort, it reminds researchers of the scaffolding that workers sometimes place around buildings. As the students become more skillful, the teacher gives them more responsibility, taking away the scaffolding when it is no longer needed. (This gradual withdrawal has been called "fading.")

SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Report A report issued in 1991 by the Department of Labor identifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities that future workers would need to succeed in entry-level jobs. Competencies listed in the SCANS report included basic skills (reading, writing, mathematics, listening, and speaking), thinking skills (creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, visualizing symbols, reasoning, and knowing how to learn), and personal qualities (responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, and integrity). The SCANS 2000 Center at Johns Hopkins University continues to promote the teaching of these skills in elementary, middle, and secondary schools.

Scholastic Achievement Tests (SAT II; formerly ACH) Subject-matter tests required for college entrance by many institutions of higher education. The SAT program is administered by The College Board, a 100-year-old, not-for-profit membership association.

Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT I) Formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the SAT was introduced in the 1950s and renamed in 1994. The SAT I is one of the two alternative standardized tests commonly used by institutions of higher education as a primary basis for evaluating a student's application for admission (the other is the ACT). According to The College Board, the name now reflects more accurately what the exam does: It measures what a student has learned, not what a student might hope to accomplish in life. The SAT I is taken each year by 1.3 million students from a variety of cultures, economic conditions, regions, and schools. Requiring three hours to take, the test has seven sections: three verbal, three mathematics, and a nonscored "equating" section used either to try out new questions or to set the scoring scale.

school-based management A system of school governance by which most decisions, including staffing and spending decisions, are made at the level of the individual school, rather than at district or other agency level. Also known as site-based management or decision making. (Schools or sites are not necessarily whole buildings. In some cases, a building may house several schools.) School-based management is frequently confused with participatory or shared decision making. Participatory or shared decision making involves multiple stakeholders (generally teams composed of administrators, teachers, and parents; some include student representatives, community members, and one or more business partners) in decision-making processes at the school. School-based management may make use of such teams; however, it might instead assign authority to school principals. School-based management implies only that decisions are made at the school level; it does not imply who makes those decisions. Some highly successful programs assign authority to school principals, who are responsible for deciding how best to involve others. And shared decision-making tends to be more successful when local administrators use it voluntarily.

school choice The idea that families should have more than one alternative when enrolling their children in school. The term is commonly employed by advocates of vouchers and tax credits as though it refers only to a choice between public and nonpublic schools. Actually, some states and school districts offer numerous options—sometimes in the form of charter or magnet schools, but also in more comprehensive choice plans. Some advocates of school choice argue that it encourages healthy competition among schools for enrollment, thus raising the quality of all schools. Opponents contend that advantaged parents are consistently able to exploit opportunities—for example, by providing transportation to schools outside their neighborhoods—so choice contributes to greater inequity.

school climate The sum of the values, cultures, safety practices, and organizational structures within a school that cause it to function and react in particular ways. Some schools are said to have a nurturing environment that recognizes children and treats them as individuals; others may have the feel of authoritarian structures where rules are strictly enforced and hierarchical control is strong. Teaching practices, diversity, and the relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and students contribute to school climate. Although the two terms are somewhat interchangeable, school climate refers mostly to the school’s effects on students, whereas school culture refers more to the way teachers and other staff members work together.

School culture The sum of the values, cultures, safety practices, and organizational structures within a school that cause it to function and react in particular ways. Some schools are said to have a nurturing environment that recognizes children and treats them as individuals; others may have the feel of authoritarian structures where rules are strictly enforced and hierarchical control is strong. Teaching practices, diversity, and the relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and students contribute to school climate. Although the two terms are somewhat interchangeable, school climate refers mostly to the school’s effects on students, whereas school culture refers more to the way teachers and other staff members work together.

School-linked programs Schools that provide not only education but also other services—such as medical and dental services, nutrition classes, parent programs, and social services—for both students and families. Such schools, sometimes called community center schools or full-service schools and usually located in inner-city urban neighborhoods, provide essential services that many families could not otherwise obtain because they lack transportation, information, money, or time. The goals of such programs are to help parents feel comfortable with teachers, become a part of the learning community, and support their children’s studies.

School readiness The basic background and knowledge that children are usually expected to have upon entering kindergarten. Some educators believe that school readiness skills should include Recognition of colors and basic shapes. Gross motor coordination that enables children to catch a ball. Fine motor coordination that enables them to hold a crayon or pencil. The ability to sort objects (e.g., beans or coins). Knowing their first and last names and home address. In addition, school readiness is usually thought to include, for example, good nutrition, inoculations, and care, safety, and guidance. Some programs, including Head Start, attempt to boost the preschool development of children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

School restructuring The implementation of new organizational patterns or styles of leadership and management to bring about renewed, more effective schools. The term restructuring was widely used by educators and reformers in the early 1990s but is less common now. It can mean reorganizing the school day or year and changing conventional practices, such as grouping students by age for an entire school year or giving competitive grades. Or it may refer to changing the roles of teachers and administrators, allocating more decision-making power to teachers, and involving parents in decisions.

School-to-work A movement based on the belief that students are not adequately prepared for careers by the time they graduate from high school. Although a growing number of parents believe their children must attend college and earn at least a bachelor’s degree to make a comfortable living, nearly three-quarters of U.S. citizens do not have a college degree, indicating that high school graduates need preparation and training to succeed in the work world. Depending on the nature of the program, preparation for employment may be called several different things, including career education and, of course, vocational education. The term school-to-work is associated with programs supported with federal funds under the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, which was intended to broaden educational, career, and economic opportunities for all students by creating partnerships between schools and businesses, community organizations, and government agencies. The act provides funds for a variety of programs, including apprenticeships, tech-prep programs, and internships. Schools and businesses work together to integrate learning and job-training skills.

Schoolwide programs Also called whole-school reform or comprehensive school reform, this term refers to an approach to school improvement that involves adopting a design for organizing an entire school. New American Schools, an organization that promotes comprehensive school reform, sponsors several different designs, each featuring challenging academic standards, strong professional development programs, meaningful parental and community involvement, and a supportive school environment.

Selected response Preferred by some testing specialists over the more common term “multiple choice” because it is more specific and contrasts with “constructed response,” meaning items that require the student to provide an answer.

Self-renewing schools Schools that have developed the capacity to revise their structures and processes to adapt to changing conditions. Self-renewing schools are sometimes called learning organizations because they learn and change in response to experience. Advocates of self-renewing schools believe that schools should change traditional practices that do not fit modern conditions, such as the influence of television and other electronic media in the lives of today’s children.

Service learning Provisions for making community service part of the school’s educational program. At the high school level, this means awarding school credit for such service. Students usually work on site at such locations as soup kitchens, recycling centers, homeless shelters, and community hospital fairs. Some high schools require that students earn a certain number of credits in service learning in order to graduate.

Sheltered instruction Teaching limited-English-speaking students by using simplified English that is relatively easy to understand and learn.

site-based decision-making A system of school governance by which most decisions, including staffing and spending decisions, are made at the level of the individual school, rather than at district or other agency level. Also known as school-based or site-based management.(Schools or sites are not necessarily whole buildings. In some cases, a building may house several schools.) Site-based decision-making is frequently confused with participatory or shared decision-making. Some schools have teams composed of administrators, teachers, and parents; some include student representatives, community members, and one or more business partners. Team members share responsibility for educational, leadership, and administrative functions. In fact, site-based decision-making does not depend on any particular arrangements for governance at the school level. Some highly successful programs assign authority to school principals, who are responsible for deciding how best to involve others. And shared decision-making tends to be more successful when local administrators use it voluntarily.

social and emotional learning (SEL) Lessons and other experiences intended to help students learn to control their emotions and to work and play with others. Several research-based programs have been developed and tested. Advocates strongly advise a planned, sequential curriculum with time set aside for SEL just as it is for other important goals.

social promotion The practice of promoting students to the next grade whether or not they have accomplished the goals of their current grade. Social promotion is almost uniformly condemned by politicians, the public, and many educators. Opponents argue that students who have not met minimum requirements must be retained in grade. Otherwise, they say, failing students will not have the prerequisite skills to continue learning and will eventually become functionally illiterate graduates. Some educators, familiar with the undesirable effects of repeated grade retention, such as high drop-out rates, prefer to approach the problem differently. They favor adopting and monitoring standards and benchmarks, blurring grade lines (ungrading), grouping students in mixed-ability groups or at their current level of achievement (alternative strategies), and focusing on individual progress. In other words, for young children at least, they would eliminate social promotion by eliminating the concept of promotion itself.

special education Educational programs for students who, because they have a disability of some kind, require special instructional help to reach their potential. This may include specially trained teachers, innovative technology or instructional materials, access to a resource room, or even external placement. The term sometimes (but not usually) includes programs for those considered gifted.

special-needs students Students who, because of physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional disabilities, require special instructional help to reach their potential. This may include specially trained teachers, innovative technology or instructional materials, access to a resource room, or even external placement. The term sometimes (but not usually) includes students classified as gifted and talented.

spiral curriculum An approach to curriculum design that provides for periodic revisiting of key topics over a period of years, presenting them in greater depth each time. Contrasts with mastery learning, which assumes that a topic should be taught thoroughly and mastered before students move on to something else.

standardized testing Tests that are administered and scored under uniform (standardized) conditions. Because most machine-scored, multiple-choice tests are standardized, the term is sometimes used to refer to such tests, but other tests may also be standardized.

standards In current usage, the term usually refers to specific criteria for what students are expected to learn and be able to do. These standards usually take two forms in the curriculum: Content standards (similar to what were formerly called goals and objectives), which tell what students are expected to know and be able to do in various subject areas, such as mathematics and science. Performance standards, which specify what levels of learning are expected. Performance standards assess the degree to which content standards have been met. The term "world-class standards" refers to the content and performances that are expected of students in other industrialized countries. In recent years, standards have also been developed specifying what teachers should know and be able to do.

standards-based education Teaching directed toward student mastery of defined standards. Now that nearly all states have adopted curriculum standards, teachers are expected to teach in such a way that students achieve the standards. Experts say this means that teachers must have a clear idea what each standard means, including how it can and will be assessed, and that teachers should monitor individual student achievement of each important standard.

student-led conference A variation of the usual parent-teacher conference in which the student plays a major part. The student prepares for the conference and leads it by showing the parents or family members samples of her work, often in the form of portfolios, and discussing areas of strengths and weaknesses. Proponents believe that having students analyze and explain samples of their own work makes them feel more responsible. It also provides an opportunity for them to practice presentation skills. If parents need a private talk with the teacher, a separate meeting or phone conversation is usually arranged.

summative test A test given to evaluate and document what students have learned. The term is used to distinguish such tests from formative tests, which are used primarily to diagnose what students have learned in order to plan further instruction.

supervision The process by which one person, usually someone with greater authority, helps another person improve his performance. A persistent issue in education is the relationship between supervision and teacher evaluation. In education, supervision is ideally a nonthreatening and helping relationship, and teacher evaluation is a formal administrative responsibility. In practice, most supervision is done by the school principal, who visits the teacher's classroom to observe and then meets with the teacher to discuss effectiveness of the lesson. The process of observing and conferring is sometimes called clinical supervision to distinguish it from the kind of employee supervision necessary in any organization, such as making sure people get to work on time.

systemic reform Improvement of education by coordinating all aspects of the system—which in various situations may be a state, a local district, or even a school. Recognizing that regulations and traditions sometimes interfere with reform, policymakers talk about standards-based systemic reform, which means establishing performance standards that students are to meet (usually at the state level) and then aligning everything else—curriculum, assessment, college entrance requirements, teacher education, teacher certification, teacher professional development, and so on—with the expected standards. If standards call for students to learn content they are not learning now, all parts of the system must work together: New instructional materials may be needed, new tests may have to be created, and teachers may need to learn new approaches.

T

teacher certification Official recognition, ordinarily by the state, that a person is qualified to be a teacher. A single certification used to last a lifetime, but many states now require certificate renewal every few years, with evidence of the completion of university or district inservice courses. Many teaching certificates are highly specialized by subject, grade levels, or specifics such as counseling or the ability to teach students with disabilities. Alternative certification is a way for persons without the standard qualifications to teach while learning on the job (with continuing education and supervision). In addition to required state certification, some highly accomplished teachers now apply for and are granted national certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

teacher licensure More commonly called teacher certification (see definition).

teacher portfolios Collections of items or exhibits intended to show a teacher's accomplishments and abilities. The idea comes from student portfolios, which may supplement or replace tests of student learning. Similarly, teacher portfolios can be used as a means of evaluation. The teacher certification program being pioneered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards uses teacher portfolios.

teaching for understanding Engaging students in learning activities intended to help them understand the complexities of a topic. Teaching for understanding is different from teaching simply for recall, which results in students being able to answer questions without knowing what their answers really mean. Specialists advise that a good way to know whether students understand is to ask them to perform a task that shows they can apply and make use of what they have learned in a realistic setting. For example, students might participate in a mock trial to demonstrate that they have developed their understanding of the rights of the accused.

teaching to the test Preparing students for a test by concentrating on the particular things the test contains rather than on the broader body of knowledge the test is intended to measure. An extreme example would be drilling students on the 20 words the teacher knows will appear on a spelling test rather than teaching the whole set of words students are supposed to have learned to spell.

team teaching An arrangement by which two or more teachers teach the same group of students. Teachers may teach together in many different ways. They may teach a course, or a combination of courses, for an entire school year, or they may plan and teach a particular unit of study. They may present content from the same, or different, subject areas. And they may keep the students in a single large group or divide them up for some purposes.

tech prep Programs of study that prepare students for careers by teaching them computer skills and other technology skills in both secondary and postsecondary schools. Most tech-prep plans provide for two years of training in high school followed by two more years in a community college. Tech prep is intended to prepare students for good jobs without a college degree, but many students who enter these programs continue their education in a four-year college or university.

tenure The legal provision that people in certain positions may not be fired without a good reason, which must be proven in court. Teachers and professors are often awarded tenure after a specified trial period. Once they have established their competence to teach and have been given tenure, they may not be dismissed for improper reasons, such as teaching an unpopular idea or belonging to the wrong political party. Opponents of tenure charge that the elaborate procedures required to dismiss a tenured person, commonly known as "due process," are so onerous that they prevent school systems from discharging poor teachers.

thematic instruction Organizing all or part of the instruction of a particular group of students around a theme, such as the Dependence and Independence. Advocates say it makes the curriculum more coherent and helps students see relationships among things they are learning.

thematic unit A segment of instruction focused on a given theme. School courses are frequently divided into units lasting from one to six weeks. For example, a literature course might include a four-week unit on The Individual and Society.

Title I Refers to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, which is intended to improve education in high-poverty communities by targeting extra resources to schools and school districts with the highest concentrations of poverty. These are areas in which academic performance tends to be low and the obstacles to raising performance are the greatest. First enacted as part of the War on Poverty, Title I was known for a while as Chapter I. ESEA must be periodically reauthorized. The most recent reauthorized version of the law, named No Child Left Behind, requires states to administer annual assessments in reading and math for all students in grades 3–8. Schools will be expected to demonstrate that all students are making adequate yearly progress in achieving proficiency on state standards, as measured by test scores. Schools not making adequate yearly progress will be targeted for improvement and they will receive additional assistance from the state. Schools continuing to not achieve adequate yearly progress will be subject to sanctions, including reconstitution of staff or conversion to a charter school.

Tracking The practice of dividing students for instruction according to their perceived abilities. Students are placed on a particular track (college-bound, general, vocational, and remedial) and given a curriculum that varies according to their perceived abilities and future positions in life. At the elementary level, the practice is called grouping. Advocates argue that it makes instruction more efficient and provides students with instruction adapted to their abilities and previous knowledge. Critics argue that it deprives students of equal opportunity, unfairly and inaccurately labels some students, and perpetuates racial, ethnic, language, and social inequalities.

trade books Individual novels and storybooks that are available for purchase at most retail bookstores. Some teachers incorporate trade books into their lessons, especially in English and history, to create more varied and interesting units of study. Some elementary reading programs depend almost entirely on trade books rather than basal texts.

tuition tax credit Reduction of income taxes paid by parents for school expenses, especially for tuition to nonpublic schools. Advocates say parents, especially low-income parents, should not be required to pay both school taxes and private school tuition. They also support the right of parents to choose the kind of school their children will attend and often contend that having competition improves the public schools. Opponents argue that using government funds for private religious schools, even indirectly through tax credits, violates the separation of church and state. They also charge that, like vouchers, tax credits reduce the amount of funding available to public schools.

 U

ungraded school A way of organizing schools that uses individual student progress, rather than age or grade level, to determine when students move from one stage of schooling to another. In an ungraded (also called nongraded) primary school, some students take longer than others to move into 4th grade from a primary-level multi-age classroom (kindergarten through 3rd grade). Students are not classified by grade levels and not evaluated using traditional letter grades (A, B, C, D,F), but their achievement is carefully monitored. As part of a major school reform in Kentucky, all schools in that state are expected to have a nongraded primary school. The idea is that children ages 5–8 can progress at their own pace without fear of failure, and that they learn best through well-planned activities appropriate to each child's phase of development.

unit of study A segment of instruction focused on a particular topic. School courses are frequently divided into units lasting from one to six weeks. For example, an American history course might include a four-week unit on The Westward Movement.

untracking Reducing or eliminating grouping by ability, resulting in classes with students from all ability levels. The result of untracking is mixed-ability grouping, also called heterogeneous rather than homogeneous (or ability) grouping. Strictly speaking, tracking refers to students being lumped into groups for all their classes based on their general ability to learn. Grouping for specific purposes, such as current knowledge of mathematics, is theoretically not tracking, although opponents charge that the practice usually has the same results. Advocates of detracking, also called untracking, point to research indicating that when students are grouped by ability, those in lower tracks are usually taught poorly and don't get exposed to "high-status" knowledge. They see untracking as part of a broader restructuring of schools in which student differences are provided for within each class. Opponents say ability grouping is easier for teachers and better for students—those who are academically able and should not be held back, and those who are slower and should have attention to their special needs.

V

validity In testing, validity means how well a test measures what it is intended to measure. For example, a test in history may be so difficult for young students to read that it is more of a reading test than a test of historical knowledge. That makes it invalid for its intended purpose.

values education Teaching children about basic human values including honesty, kindness, generosity, courage, freedom, equality, and respect. The goal is to raise children to become morally responsible, self-disciplined citizens. Because some values are controversial (such as attitudes toward homosexuality), parent groups have occasionally insisted that schools should not attempt to teach values at all. Taken literally, that would be impossible, because for children to live and work together, some values must be communicated and enforced. Character education programs frequently focus on a set of values arrived at by community consensus. These values may be taught through telling stories, holding discussions, and pointing out examples when they occur. Values clarification, a form of values education used in some schools in the 1960s and '70s, has been strongly criticized as misguided and irresponsible. Proponents advised that students should discuss complex value issues (such as who should be thrown from an overloaded lifeboat) while teachers were to remain neutral. Even some of the advocates now admit that, without reasonable adult guidance, values clarification can be harmful. On the other hand, experienced parents and teachers know that, although it is important for adults to be clear about where they stand, students also benefit from opportunities to express their honest views as they think things out for themselves.

visualization Consciously creating a picture of something in the mind. Teachers sometimes encourage students to visualize situations to help them remember information or to prepare them for creative activities such as writing stories. For example, a history teacher might ask students to imagine themselves at Gettysburg on the morning before a day of heavy fighting, asking them to think about the sights, the sounds, and the smells around them, and how they would be feeling. Then, still pretending to be Civil War soldiers, the students might write a letter to a parent or friend about the battle of Gettysburg.

vocational education Schooling at the high school level that allows students to spend a part of the school day attending traditional classes and the rest of the day learning a trade, such as auto repair or cosmetology. Vocational classes may be held in the same school building as the other classes or in a separate vocational-technical school. Students may also train at real work sites.

voucher A certificate issued to parents that can be used as full or partial payment of tuition for any nonpublic school. Advocates of vouchers say low-income parents should be able to choose the kind of school their children will attend and that competition will improve the public schools. They argue that citizens should not be required to pay both school taxes and private school tuition. Opponents say that using government funds for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state, and that vouchers reduce the amount of funding available to public schools.

W

whole language A technique for teaching language arts that emphasizes the reading and writing of whole texts (sometimes beginning with picture books) before analyzing words and individual letter sounds. Advocates believe it instills a love of reading more than a strictly phonetic approach, which begins with drilling and memorizing the basic vowel and consonant sounds. Although some reading specialists are bitterly divided over the merits of whole language versus systematic phonics, most schools offer a combination of both—some putting more emphasis on reading for meaning, some on component skills. Some programs differentiate instruction according to individual student needs. Research studies indicate that whole-language practices work well with children who are visual, holistic learners.

world-class standards Content and performance levels that are expected of students in other industrialized countries. Also refers to the movement in the United States to bring students' academic achievement and knowledge on par with students' accomplishments in the other industrialized countries. In 1993, New Standards (a joint project of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the Learning Research and Development Center) began to collect and analyze tests and documents from other countries whose students performed well on international tests and whose citizens perform well economically and tend to hold skilled jobs. The project was based on the view that educational systems are successful when they set clear, consistent, demanding public standards that make sense in the culture of the school and the country.

Y

year-round schooling Replacing the conventional school year of 9–10 months and a long summer break with a continuous school year with breaks at other times. Advocates say the traditional school calendar reflects a society that needed children home in the summer to work on farms. In today's society, children are frequently left home alone in the summer with little to do. School systems have devised several different year-round models. In the single-track approach, the lengthy summer vacation is replaced by several shorter breaks that are scattered throughout the calendar year. In one such plan, known as 45-15, the school year consists of four 45-day sessions separated by breaks of approximately 15 days each. The advantage is that students retain more information than they would over a long break and need less review, so can continue learning more readily. The breaks give both students and teachers more frequent opportunities to relax. Some schools offer minicourses and enrichment classes during breaks. In a multitrack approach, most often used in rapidly growing communities, school is always in session, but only a portion of the students attend at any one time so that there is enough room to accommodate everyone. A school built to accommodate 750 students can be used to educate 1,000 students if, at any given time, 250 of them are on vacation. The multitrack method saves money that would otherwise have to be spent for school construction, although costs are incurred for the additional salaries, maintenance, and air conditioning (as needed). Families often resist both single-track and multitrack year-round schooling plans because they disrupt schedules and interfere with vacation plans, at least initially. Breaks at nontraditional times of the year, however, may allow families to enjoy less expensive, less crowded vacations. A different version of year-round schooling, seldom used because it is expensive, extends the school year from the conventional 180 days to as many as 247 school days.

Z

zero tolerance Provisions in legislation or official policies that require specified punishments for given offenses, no matter how slight the offense. Zero tolerance rules are adopted to send a message about unacceptable behavior, and adherents support them for that reason. However, school administrators who are permitted no flexibility in enforcing such rules are sometimes ridiculed in the press for their apparent poor judgment.