Education reform is a plan, program, or movement which attempts to bring about a systematic change in educational theory or practice across a community or society.

At the current time, in the United States, public attention focuses on the high expense and poor outcomes of primary and secondary schools relative to their counterparts in other countries. The U.S. however, has the best tertiary education system in the world. Important contributing factors to this excellence seem to be that this system admits on tested merit, is supported by a large base of paying students—affording it the best teachers and researchers, and has nearly perfect student choice—leading to poor institutions losing funding.

Education Reform: Inside
[ History ] [ Educational Economies in the 1800s ]
[ Progressive Reforms in America ] [ Reforms in the 1980s ]
[ Reforms in the 1990s ] [ Motivations ] [ School Choice ]
[ Alternatives to Public Education ] [ Notable Reforms ]
[ Websites ]

A Nation at Risk: Popular title of the 1983 report of President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education.

Constructivism: Set of assumptions about the nature of human learning that guide constructivist learning theories and teaching methods of education.

Curriculum Framework: Organized plan or set of standards or learning outcomes that defines the content to be learned in terms of clear, definable standards of what the student should know and be able to do.

Higher Order Thinking Skills: The simplest thinking skills are learning facts and recall, while higher order skills include critical thinking, analysis and problem solving.

Illinois Loop: Organization of parents, teachers, school board members, and others working to restore academic substance and effective teaching methods into schools.

Inquiry-Based Science: Method of teaching science where students learn science by using similar methods, attitudes and skills as scientists do when they are conducting scientific research.

Investigations in Numbers, Data, and Space: Complete K-5 mathematics curriculum, developed at TERC in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Math Wars: Debate over modern mathematics education, textbooks and curricula in the US that was triggered by the publication in 1989 of the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

NCEE: Instrumental in the implementation of Standards-based education reform.

Principles and Standards for School Mathematics: document produced in 1989 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to set forth a national vision for pre college mathematics education in the United States and Canada.

Saxon: Teaching method for incremental learning of mathematics.

School-to-work transition: Phrase referring to on-the-job training, apprenticeships, cooperative education agreements or other programs designed to prepare students to enter the job market.

Standards-based education reform: The standards-based reform movement calls for clear, measurable standards for all school students.

Students as education decision-makers: Practice of actively teaching young people responsibility for their education by systematically engaging them in making choices about learning, schooling, and the education system.

U.S. Department of Education exemplary mathematics programs: This is the list as was published in the Department of Education press release. These math programs were selected primarily for their adherence to standards-based mathematics reform rather than data showing improved learning.