Designing Instruction

Making Best Practices Work in Standards-Based Classrooms

It is no secret that meeting the AYP goals mandated by NCLB is a considerable challenge for many educators. Even some of the wealthiest, highest-performing schools and districts have not been able to make enough annual yearly progress with some of their student subgroups. Faced with decreased funds and other potential penalties, school leaders are scrambling to find new education models to significantly and quickly raise achievement levels of academically struggling students. However, even the most highly-touted school reform guides do not to include classroom practices and the most prestigious curriculum-instructional programs do not address infrastructure issues which can determine success or failure. Concerned that many districts will fall short in their efforts to improve student performance using imbalanced approaches, the authors present a comprehensive, three-pronged approach for raising achievement levels. This resource shows school and district leaders how to begin a strong overall reform project by first incorporating the following essential elements: standards-based curriculum, best practice techniques for instruction delivery and assessment and a series of capacity-building processes to integrate reforms into the daily operation of each school