Background: No single course has generated as much contentious policy debate as Algebra I. It serves as a critical gatekeeper to college and career readiness, often creating obstacles for historically marginalized students. As school districts redesign mathematics policies to align with Common Core State Standards (CCSS-M), local leaders must navigate complex instructional decisions. Leaders in one urban district initiated a multiyear effort to redesign its secondary mathematics pathways and access to algebra in response to changing standards. Purpose: This study examines how district leaders socially constructed the needs of various educational constituencies during internal decision-making and how these constructions influence the design of influential mathematics policy. This paper contributes to the field of education research by highlighting the connection between local policy and the deliberative processes through which district leaders shape their collective efforts. Drawing on social construction theory, it underscores how the way constituent groups are defined can influence policy design in education. Given that much educational decision-making occurs outside the public’s view, this work draws attention to a key influence on the process and outcome of important policy design. Research Design: We conducted a longitudinal qualitative case study over 2.5 years in the Cypress School District, a racially and socioeconomically diverse urban district serving more than 50,000 students. Our data corpus included 14 observed task force meetings (totaling 372 hours of observation), 101 interviews with 49 central office staff, and 1,826 documents, including 22 drafts of the policy under development. We identified 899 references to stakeholder groups and used a combination of inductive and deductive coding to analyze how district leaders rhetorically constructed these groups as targets of design, voice, and persuasion. We traced how these constructions evolved alongside the drafting of policy documents, allowing us to map discourse to specific decision points and revisions in the policy. By triangulating observational data, interviews, and policy artifacts, we were able to capture how internal deliberations shaped both the process and substance of instructional policymaking. Conclusions: District leaders, individually and collectively, made sense of the needs and interests of diverse constituent groups, including students, parents, teachers, school leaders, other district leaders, and school board members. They positioned these groups as (1) targets for their design efforts, (2) salient perspectives to give “voice” to within meetings, and (3) potential audiences to be informed or persuaded. Policymakers weighed the perceived needs of Black and Latinx families who had been ill-served by past policies; teachers, school leaders, and district leaders who were constructed as leading implementers in different policy solutions; affluent parents who would argue for access to advanced coursework for “mathematically gifted” children; and members of the elected school board who would need to be convinced to vote for the final policy. Weighing the needs of these different constituent groups formed the basis for the district’s eventual approval of the course pathways policy. We argue that constituent group construction is a key influence on the process and outcome of important policy design in local school districts.

A holistic framework that integrates Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with functional skills instruction for high school students with extensive support needs (ESN) is urgently needed for high schools to comply with recent legislation like the California Assembly Bill 181 (2022), that established an alternate diploma pathway that is aligned with alternate academic standards. This paper argues against the false dichotomy between academic and functional curricula and, instead proposes a framework that integrates CCSS into functional activities by isolating specific skills (e.g., literacy, mathematics, collaboration, or technology use) and aligns them with evidence-based practices such as task analysis, video modeling, systematic instruction, prompting, and peer-mediated interventions. Instructional transparency is encouraged through visible classroom standards and academic subject labeling, supporting shared understanding among educators, families, and administrators. Further, the paper posits that functional skills are naturally an authentic context for standards-based instruction, allowing educators to maintain academic rigor while promoting skills needed for post-school readiness. This integrated framework offers a practical approach to curriculum design and instructional planning for students with extensive support needs to prepare students for meaningful postsecondary education, employment, and community life.

Students with mathematics difficulty (MD) often struggle with both computation and word-problem solving, which are foundational skills emphasized in national standards such as the Common Core State Standards. As most past-error analysis research has primarily focused on a single mathematical topic, little is known about whether students with MD demonstrate error patterns consistently across both computation and word problems. The present study examined error types and consistency that Grade 4 and 5 students with MD made on 22 computation problems and 10 word problems. Using a researcher-developed coding protocol adapted from prior literature, we identified that the most common errors were miscalculation, regrouping subtract smaller integer, and wrong operation in computation; and wrong schema, miscalculation, copy, and regrouping in word problems. The majority of students did not demonstrate overlapping errors.

Abstract The high school English classroom is the most influential literary institution in the United States, and the most overlooked by literary scholars. This essay examines the literary canon of US secondary schools alongside the co-curricular institutions—from Advanced Placement to CliffsNotes and the Common Core—that have shaped classroom practice since 1945. Cold War investments in cultivating the nation’s youth contributed to the foundation of the Advanced Placement program, as well as to the practice of reading for “character development,” an interpretive strategy that transforms every text into a bildungsroman. In the same period, New Critical notions of reading for “theme” became central to high school English, but also worked to dehistoricize and deracinate texts, especially those by writers of color. Since 2010, the Common Core State Standards have de-emphasized the reading of literature altogether, a major yet often undiscussed factor in the decline of university English. Reading novels by J. D. Salinger, Colson Whitehead, and Jennifer Egan through the lens of the classroom, this essay argues that understanding high school English is essential for those who study American literary history as well as those who seek to ensure its future.

This article examines a comparative analysis of mathematics curricula in the United States and Indonesia, focusing on their structural design, implementation practices, and the challenges encountered in practice. This study employs a literature review method by analyzing official curriculum documents, scholarly articles, policy reports, and empirical studies published within the last five years. The analysis shows that the United States implements a standardized curriculum through the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), which emphasizes coherence across grade levels and a balance between conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and mathematical application. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Merdeka Curriculum adopts a more flexible phase-based structure to accommodate diverse educational contexts. In practice, the United States benefits from stronger infrastructure, professional development, and consistent assessment systems, whereas Indonesia faces challenges related to disparities in facilities, teacher readiness, and varying levels of understanding of Learning Outcomes and authentic assessment. The synthesis indicates that curriculum effectiveness is strongly influenced by alignment between structural design, implementation capacity, and policy stability. This article provides valuable insights for strengthening mathematics curriculum development across diverse educational settings

Educational institutions have been impacted by the rapid shift of information gathering mediums and student perspectives shaped by generative artificial intelligence in social, political, and historical education. Through a comparative analysis of four distinct large language models (LLMs): ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Qwen and applying a series of educational inquiries and classroom-applicable scenarios, the study evaluates biases, accuracy, inclusiveness, and potential misleading content in LLM-generated responses using a five-band benchmark designed based on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) educational standards. Results reveals significant difference in terms of consistency and inclusivity performance among models; though showed few relations to political stance of the model (produced by which country), the outcome analysis still highlights how generative AI responses could impact educators and learners predominantly through its range of information and phrasing logic.

In this study, researchers investigated the impact of transdisciplinary learning on minority students as they were asked to apply higher-order thinking to solve real-world problems. Minority students, aged 10 to 11, who attended the researcher’s elective classes participated. To see the potential in Transdisciplinary Learning, researchers looked at its essence through the use of “transfer skills and tools” such as: metacognition, questioning, Computational Thinking, Common Core State Standards Mathematical Practices (MP1: Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them; MP4: Modeling with Mathematics; MP7: Look for and make use of structure; MP8: look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning), digital technology tools, and self-efficacy. The use of these “transfer skills and tools” was monitored to collect data on students' progress and development to see how underrepresented students fare with rigorous instruction that offered them student-centered experiences that would build their capacity to solve “wicked” 21st-century global problems. Results yielded self-efficacy as a critical variable that provided some statistically significant outcomes. While promising for refining future efforts to empower students, the findings for the immediate effects of transfer skills and tools used to increase students’ deep learning were inconclusive.

Mathematical modeling is a cyclical process in which mathematics is used to represent, explore, and better understand real-world situations by mathematizing a problem and validating the results. Unlike traditional word problems, modeling tasks require learners to make assumptions, define quantities, apply mathematics, interpret results, and revise solutions within authentic contexts. Mathematical modeling is increasingly recognized as essential in mathematics education, highlighted in standards such as the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics through mathematical practice 4 (MP4): model with mathematics. This entry explores the evolving landscape of mathematical modeling education. First, it reviews the diverse conceptions of modeling and the various frameworks used to describe the modeling process, including distinctions between holistic and atomistic approaches. Second, it examines the current state of research, including the documented benefits of modeling for student engagement and access, as well as the challenges teachers face in enacting modeling tasks. Finally, the entry discusses implications for future research and practice, emphasizing the need for targeted teacher preparation and continued theoretical refinement to better support the integration of modeling into mathematics instruction.

ABSTRACT This document analysis study reports on whether there is evidence that learning trajectories or progressions were used during the development of mathematics standards revisions since the creation of the Common Core State Standards. In total, 52 mathematics standards revision documents that were adopted from 2010 to 2024 and 38 state department of education websites were analyzed. The results of this study determined that 33 individual states provided information on learning progressions or trajectories within revised states or state department of education websites; however, there were varying levels of incorporation of learning progressions or trajectories. These findings have lasting impacts on the mathematics students are expected to know and be able to do as well as the coherence teachers are expected to follow while teaching various mathematics topics. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Abstract— Fostering disciplinary literacy skills from an early age is essential to prepare young children for educational success in the future. This study explores teaching strategies to develop disciplinary literacy, particularly in mathematics within early childhood education (ECE). Drawing on a literature review approach, this paper integrates three key frameworks: the Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the 4Es heuristic model by Moje (2015), and the eight mathematical practices outlined in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The findings highlight three main strategies that considered effective in promoting disciplinary literacy in mathematics: (1) involving children with their social rich learning environment; (2) implementing play-based learning to foster cognitive, linguistic, and social development; and (3) facilitating conversation-rich instruction to encourage problem solving and mathematical reasoning. These strategies are essential in scaffolding children’s abilities to read, write, and comprehend mathematical concepts within disciplinary contexts. Additionally, introducing these practices in early education contributes to build a strong academic foundation for children and promotes critical engagement with disciplinary knowledge in later years.

Формулювання проблеми. Сучасна реформа загальної середньої освіти в Україні, представлена концепцією «Нова українська школа», орієнтується на адаптацію кращих міжнародних практик у сфері навчання. Одним із пріоритетів є оновлення змісту шкільної математичної освіти відповідно до викликів XXI століття. У цьому контексті актуальним є порівняльний аналіз державного стандарту базової середньої освіти України та стандартів математичної освіти інших країн, наприклад, США і, зокрема, штату Масачусетс, який забезпечує високу якість освітніх результатів. Матеріали і методи. Для досягнення мети дослідження використано методи педагогічної компаративістики: системний і порівняльний аналіз наукових джерел, нормативно-правових документів, освітніх стандартів України та США. Дослідження спирається на аналіз офіційних документів: Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), Massachusetts Curriculum Framework (2017), Державного стандарту базової середньої освіти України (2020). Результати. Проведено глибокий порівняльний аналіз структури, цілей, змісту, очікуваних результатів та інструментів оцінювання в українському та американському освітніх стандартах. Показано, що обидва стандарти орієнтовані на розвиток математичної компетентності та критичного мислення, проте реалізуються через різні підходи. Зокрема, в США чітко виокремлено метапредметні «математичні практики» як ключовий інструмент формування математичного мислення, тоді як в Україні ці елементи інтегровані в опис компетентностей. Стандарти Масачусетса демонструють високий рівень структурованості, акцент на міждисциплінарність (STEM) і практичне застосування знань. Висновки. Отримані результати засвідчують доцільність адаптації елементів американського досвіду до українського контексту, зокрема: впровадження математичних практик, посилення міждисциплінарної інтеграції та розвитку формувального оцінювання. Це може стати основою для трансформації шкільної математичної освіти в Україні у напрямі підвищення функціональної грамотності та відповідності сучасним освітнім викликам.

Standards-based reform has grown in the field of education. Efforts to do so in mathematics and reading through the Common Core State Standards, while initially adopted widely, ultimately proved controversial. In contrast, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have been less polarizing. Using an event history analysis, we examined the state political, economic, and social factors that predicted adoption of the NGSS as well as how factors differentially related to full-scale adoption or adoption of standards based on the NGSS. Results show, while few factors predicted adoption broadly, the presence of a larger proportion of Republicans in the legislature predicted a higher likelihood of adopting standards based on the NGSS than fully adopting them.

This study offers a comprehensive textual analysis comparing the mathematical curriculum objectives across the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), China's Ordinary High School Mathematics Curriculum Standards, and the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Using an analytic comparison methodology, the mathematical knowledge and competencies imparted by each curriculum were measured and contrasted. The findings reveal that, when advanced placement courses are excluded, students in China are exposed to the highest number of mathematical knowledge points. However, when including advanced placement courses, the Common Core marginally surpasses the others in the density of mathematical content. Notably, across all three curricula, there's a limited emphasis on technological applications, leading to a stronger focus on computational mathematics and scientific calculations. Methods such as variation and optimization are scarcely touched upon in these curricula.

The concept of combining picturebooks and poetry as blended genres to teach important concepts in life science was introduced in a previous article (see Author, in press). This article builds on and extends that article by combining picturebooks and poetry as blended genres to teach earth and space science. It briefly reviews the value of integrating poetry and science, the important relationship between paired text and blended genres, and the connection between blended genres and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Standards. It shares examples of blended genres and samples of instructional strategies that K-8 teachers can use to help students learn important concepts in Earth and Space and Science and ends with final thoughts.

This article introduces the concept of combining poetry and picturebooks as blended genres and shares an instructional strategy that K–8 teachers can use with blended genres to help students learn important concepts in ELA and life science. It begins with background on the important relationship between science and literature. Next, it describes fundamental differences between paired text and blended genres and connects blended genres to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Then, it shares examples of blended genres and a sample of an instructional strategy that can be used with blended genres to teach important concepts in Life Science. It ends with a final thought.

Two major sets of U.S. content standards have changed since 2010: the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Whereas the CCSS received widespread pushback, the NGSS were broadly uncontentious. Why? Drawing from policy learning and networked publics theories, we used mixed-effects modeling to estimate how tweet authors, hashtags, and time explain sentiment in almost 2 million tweets related to both reforms from 2011 to 2023. Politically motivated, negative tweets from heterogeneous individuals and organizations explained CCSS’s sentiment. In contrast, tweets discussing NGSS were more uniform across science education professionals. We propose two educational reform trajectories—(a) politically driven to gradually accepted and (b) niche-specific to widely accepted—to guide future policy actors.

The 114-page document, College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, subtitled Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History, was published in the United States by the National Council for the Social Studies in 2013. Fifteen professional organizations, including the Association of American Geographers (now American Association of Geographers), National Council for Geographic Education, and National Geographic Society collaborated in its production. The seventeen-person writing team included Susan Hardwick (b. 1945–d. 2015), professor emerita of geography at the University of Oregon, who contributed to the 1994 Geography for Life: National Geography Standards, and Robert Morrill, professor emeritus of geography at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and co-coordinator of the Virginia Geographic Alliance. Dr. Morrill guided multiple publications, outlining guidelines for geography education from 1984 to 2013. Only one other member of the writing team mentioned “geography” in their biography, Karen Thomas-Brown, who has researched “the impact of gender on the teaching and learning of geography.” Over a third of the members of the writing team were historians, three specialized in economics, two in civics, and four in pedagogy, including Kathy Swan, the lead writer and project director. The objective of the project was to support the development of skills and concepts required to conduct inquiry—which encourages students to ask questions and engage in problem solving, rather than to offer specific content for the four core disciplines of social studies, as curriculum was intended to be developed through state standards. The C3 Framework describes connections to the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy prepared by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA) in 2010. The document provides a helpful guide, “How to Read the C3 Framework,” and reminds readers that several issues are not covered in the C3 Framework, including rigorous content resources, substantive materials for social studies disciplines beyond the four core ones identified previously, and approaches to supporting students of varied abilities and strengths. The pedagogical methods and tactics to evaluate sources and use evidence apply effectively to all disciplines, with useful examples specific to geography offered at multiple learning levels. Terms familiar to geographers and geography educators are found in the section, “Applying Disciplinary Concepts & Tools.” In examining the glossary of key terms, just under a third (forty-seven) reference economic ideas, while a quarter (thirty-nine) are linked to geography; 15 percent (twenty-three) were general (such as “evidence” or “technical”), and another 14 percent each (twenty-two) referenced civics and historic terminology.

ABSTRACT A state testing boycott commencing in 2013 was driven largely by the controversial adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). On Long Island, NY, testing boycotts were particularly high in the region, known for its high levels of diversity and segregation among its 127 school districts. Accordingly, this study describes secondary data analysis of state testing results to examine the impact of district socioeconomic status (SES), opt-out rates, and student demographic and educational characteristics on proficiency levels. Results show that low-need (high SES) districts had higher proficiency rates and lower opt-out rates than average-need districts, while high-need districts had lower opt-out and proficiency rates. Students who were economically disadvantaged, have disabilities, are in high-need districts, or are Black, Latino or Native Americans demonstrated lower proficiency in maths and ELA. In addition, opt-out rates had a small, negative and statistically significant association with proficiency.

This study examines the high school mathematics curriculum standards of China and the United States, focusing on Chinas General High School Mathematics Curriculum Standards (2017 Edition, Revised in 2020) (hereinafter referred to as the China Standards) and the high school section of the U.S. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (hereinafter referred to as the U.S. Standards). Through a detailed comparative analysis of the historical background, framework, curricular philosophy and characteristics, competencies and objectives, as well as content and level requirements of these standards, this study aims to provide insights and references for the further revision and reform of Chinas mathematics curriculum standards. The findings hold both representative and universal significance.

ABSTRACT Vocabulary is crucial for reading development, as suggested by models of reading and reviews of research. Despite this body of research, we know less about what vocabulary supports have been prioritized in lower elementary classrooms since the publication of the Common Core State Standards in 2010. Therefore, this study investigated how teachers implemented vocabulary instruction during language arts lessons in first through third grade classrooms, within a low-income, rural community. Data sources were classroom observations and semi-structured teacher interviews. Results revealed that vocabulary instruction occurred more frequently than expected, when compared to previous observation studies. Teachers prioritized words related to language arts standards, rather than those that came from the texts; relied on in-the-moment instruction, rather than planning ahead; and used strategies for checking students’ knowledge of words, rather than providing definitions of words or using a variety of evidence-based supports. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.