Also see "The MiddleWeb Guide to Standards-Based School Reform"

Teaching in the Standards-Based Classroom
The Winter 1998 issue of "Changing Schools in Long Beach" profiles the efforts of three teachers (social studies, language arts, and math) to redesign teaching and learning around standards. Also see our profiles of standards-based classrooms in Louisville, Kentucky.

Using Standards and Assessments
The March 1999 issue of Educational Leadership features stories on "Using Standards and Assessments." Several of the stories are posted on the ASCD website; others are available by ordering the issue (or subscribing to EL). The on-line stories include "Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality," by James Popham; "Realizing the Promise of Standards-Based Education," by Mike Schmoker and Robert J. Marzano; and a review of Anne Wheelock's book, "Safe To Be Smart."

Is Your Middle School Ready for Standards-Based Reform?
"One of the tenets of standards-based reform policies is that 'only outcomes matter'," writes Anne Wheelock, author of "Safe To Be Smart: Building a Culture for Standards-Based Reform in the Middle Grades." While that may be the case from the perspective of politicians and policymakers, Wheelock says, "evaluators know that examining 'context indicators' and using formative assessments are often more helpful in stimulating changes in teaching and learning." Wheelock has developed an assessment guide based on her book that schools can use to consider their readiness for standards-based reform.

McCREL Standards Database
The Third Edition of "Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education," is now online in full text . The Standards and Benchmarks databases can be browsed and searched, and the standards are connected to subject area Internet resources.

Performance standards critical to success of standards-based reform
So says standards guru Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, who argues that the standards movement will stall unless teachers have statements of what students are supposed to know and be able to do, examples of student work that actually meets the standard, and a commentary that explains why.

Achieve, Inc.
This standards-oriented website grew out of the 1996 National Education Summit. Many resources.

The New American Schools
New American Schools is a non-partisan, business-led nonprofit supporting comprehensive school reform designs "that adhere to rigorous requirements to help schools significantly raise achievement for all students."

New standards for English Language Development
Groundbreaking content standards for ELD/ESL programs hold out the promise that non-native English speakers in the Long Beach schools will make more rapid progress through the labyrinth of bilingual and sheltered language programs. Look at Maria's writing and her teacher's standards-based analysis and read about a school with 60 % ESL kids that had only a "30 % program".

Full-time middle school reformer talks about standards and student achievement
"What is going to change as a result of standards are the things we ask kids to do," says Kristi Kahl, director of middle school reform for the Long Beach, CA schools."And because we expect them to learn more deeply, we have to assess them at a deeper level. We have to ask them to demonstrate their knowledge and skills on assessments that require them to assemble what they know."

Questions and Answers about Standards and School Reform
Written specifically for readers in the Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools, this brief discussion of standards may be useful to anyone looking for ideas about communicating with a lay audience.

Teaching for High Standards: What Policymakers Need to Know and Be Able to Do
By Linda Darling Hammond and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. One of several commissioned papers from the National Education Goals Panel, that address implementation of standards-based reform.

Practicing the Impossible
As teachers rush like Alice's rabbit from one demand to another, many see the Long Beach school district's new emphasis on a standards-based curriculum at the edge of their vision and think: "It will just have to wait its turn" or "Prove to me it's more important than all the other pulls on my time." Anne Lewis tries.

Of Penguins and Problem-Solving: Working Through New Math Standards (CSLB #1)
This story by Anne C. Lewis describes how one middle school mathematics teacher is integrating standards into her lively, everyday classroom teaching. Sidebars address professional development and explore why standards are important. Examples of student work included.

Are my classroom standards high enough?
Middle school consultant and busy doctoral student Holly Hatch answers a teacher's e-mail question about whether she's challenging her students enough and what it means to have "high standards."

Standards-Based Reform: What Does It Mean for the Middle Grades? by Anne Wheelock
For generations, good teachers have asked the questions "What do I want my students to know at the end of the year?" and "What do I want my students to be able to do with this knowledge?" In the mid-1990s, these questions are at the heart of educational debate and reform that reach beyond teachers' individual classrooms to engage entire schools and communities. Also: See Anne Wheelock's e-mail to "Vickie" about the characteristics of a good middle school.

Standards in Context
What happens in the superintendent's or principal's office heavily influences the standards implementation process. "There are perennial issues that challenge all school systems, and you must address them if your schools are to have any hope of using standards to raise levels of student performance." Remarks at a 1995 conference sponsored by the Council on Basic Education.