The adoption of the Common Core State Standards has necessitated a change in the instructional practices used by many mathematics teachers. The new standards encourage problem solving and the development of conceptual understanding rather than rote memorization of formulas and rules. Researchers have demonstrated that formative assessment is a powerful instructional tool that, when implemented properly, can increase student achievement. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine how mathematics teachers in Pennsylvania perceive the new standards; how they value and use formative assessment practices including involving students in their work, modeling quality work, providing feedback, and providing opportunities for peer and self-assessment; and how these variables are related to each other. The answers to these research questions could potentially guide future professional development for teachers. This study was guided by the theoretical framework of Bloom, Dewey, and Piaget who each stated that a constructivist approach to learning is necessary for student growth. Likert scale surveys were used and Pearson correlational studies were conducted to analyze the data from the 174 respondents. Results revealed that participants were generally not in favor of the Common Core State Standards, and there were few statistically significant relationships between teachers' value and use of the 4 formative assessment practices and their value of the standards. Participants appeared to have some misconceptions about the standards and the instructional practices that support implementation, suggesting a continued need for professional development. Attention to this professional learning could help to promote student achievement.

The purpose of this study was to identify the link between culture and pedagogy through the implementation of the Common Core Standards with the goal of increasing the instructional outcomes of African-American students. This study investigated culturally relevant pedagogy implementing of Common Core Standards through the variables of teacher efficacy, instructional delivery of Common Core Standards, cultural synchronization, and cultural sensitivity. Furthermore, the research examined Ladson-Billings criterion for culturally relevant teaching and its application to the 21st century student as they encounter Common Core Standards. This research was conducted at a primary public school with a large minority population and located in the suburbs of Atlanta. The participants in this study were certified classroom teachers, support teachers, and instructional lead teachers. Data were collected in a triangulated fashion through surveys, interviews, observations, and attitude scales. The study findings manifested how the characteristics of culturally relevant teaching aligned with regulated standards could create a connection between culture and education for African-American students. The findings and conclusions of this study suggest that cultural characteristics of teachers have an impact of culturally relevant pedagogy implementing Common Core Standards. Teachers are cultural beings and utilize their own cultural backgrounds to identify differences between themselves and African-American students. These differences manifested themselves as teachers worked to implement new standards while using culturally relevant teaching practices. Practical implications and recommendations based on findings and conclusions are offered in this study.

As the majority of the nation has adopted Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), studying parents' resistance to these standards becomes vital in improving parental involvement and support of school mathematics reforms. Using Schoenfeld's (2011) model for decision making as a framework, an online survey and six interviews were conducted. The results of the survey showed that parents' resources related to student experiences and the mathematical methods students are performing are affecting their resistance toward CCSSM. The survey results also showed that parents' orientations related to the difficulty of the standards and politics affects their resistance toward CCSSM. The interview results inform the mathematics education community of what parents view as CCSSM and the goals, orientations, and resources that affect parents' resistance toward CCSSM.

During the times we live in, writing has become a very important skill for all young students and adults to have. Whether they are taking a standardized test or putting together a resume, basic writing skills are necessary. In this thesis, I will attempt to prove that teaching the six traits of writing with the use of mentor texts is a great, creative way to help students learn the writing process. I will also explore how to align the concept of the six traits of writing with the new Common Core State Standards. This topic is very important when it comes to education. Huge emphasis is placed on the skill of being able to write, and our students are expected to be proficient in this process. Through writing students can communicate emotions, ideas, and knowledge they have pertaining to different subject areas. As a whole, the writing process can become daunting for young students. By using the six traits of writing through mentor texts, students can learn chunk by chunk and eventually master the skill of writing. Experts in writing decided that breaking different skills into manageable components might prove helpful to authors of all ages and skill levels (Culham, 2008). The second component to be addressed is aligning the six traits concept with the Common Core State Standards. All across the nation, states have adopted these new standards and school communities are trying to figure out how to make the switch. By aligning the Common Core State Standards with the six traits of writing, teachers will be able to eliminate this process for the writing portion of the standards. For my own research, I have chosen to create and modify minilessons for each of the six traits of writing with use of mentor texts. Common Core State Standards will be aligned with these minilessons for educators to use as they see fit.

The standardized testing regime begun under No Child Left Behind and continued with the Common Core is being challenged. Opt Out is a national movement in which parents refuse to have their children partake in state mandated tests. This case study examines the Opt Out movement through the lens of political spectacle which suggests public policy is largely formed through dramatic public acts that reinforce existing inequalities. Arguing that Opting Out is inherently a dramatic public act, the study examines the Opt Out movement’s impact on legislative educational policy formation in the State of Arizona. Opt Out legislation and texts formed from the accompanying legislative debate, relevant media, and interviews with legislators are critically analyzed to further explain the mechanics of political spectacle. Theoretical aspects of political spectacle such as the current political spectacle framework and current methodological issues involved with the theory are also critiqued with possible solutions proposed.

Although standards-based IEP goals have been mandated in many states for almost a decade, their effectiveness is unknown. Standards-based IEP goals were first created to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, which increased accountability for all students as well as those with disabilities, while providing targets for state standardized test scores and ensuring access to, and progress in, the general education curriculum for students with disabilities. Factors, such as teacher training, collaboration, and accountability may influence teachers’ perceptions of aligning IEP goals to grade level expectations. Using a survey, this study examined teachers’ perceptions of the efficacy of standards-based IEP goals. One hundred prekindergarten and kindergarten female teachers responded to the survey. Calculations from a linear regression indicated that a relationship existed between the usage of standards-based goals and curriculum-based measures. Results also indicated that teachers may choose to ignore standards-based IEP goals at times to focus on individual students’ needs. Overall, teachers reported that they wrote or gave input into the development of IEPs. However, not all teachers recognized the benefits of students with disabilities in general education classrooms, despite indicating that accommodations and modifications were generally defined. Future research suggestions include investigating perceptions regarding standards-based IEP goals in terms of type of disability of the student. Additionally, a review of personnel preparation programs could provide additional information about the training that teachers receive regarding standards-based IEP goals.

This study concentrated on word problems in Grades Kindergarten-3 and the application of the Standards for Mathematical Practice and the Content Standards. The study also included an analysis of focus, coherence, and rigor in the materials. The textbooks used were among the first editions to be published after the acceptance of the Common Core State Standards in more than 40 states. The study analyzed the presence of the Common Core Standards in each series and how the three textbook series compared to each other in their word problem solving. The correlation of materials in the three textbook series relied on publishers’ descriptions in the Lesson Openers where the usages of the Standards for Mathematical Practice and the Content Standards and the principles of focus, coherence, and rigor are listed. The publishers’ descriptions were analyzed and compared to the individual evaluation criteria. Using an evaluation criterion, the study examined how Standards for Mathematical Practice were implemented in the textbooks. With the exception of a few grades in two textbook series, the texts displayed low percentages in their adherence to the Standards. The textbook series were similar in their development of word problems labeled with Standards for Mathematical Practice and word problems not labeled with the Standards. In this comparison, the only difference between the two types of word problems was in the verbiage. The Content Standards were used to determine the textbook series alignment with the Standards. The three textbook series showed low implementation of word problem Content Standards when compared to the total number of Standards. In two series, only one Content Standard was listed multiple times rather than a combination of comparable Standards. Relying on the publishers’ descriptions, the study showed how publishers implemented focus, coherence, and rigor in their materials. Of the three publishers, one publisher did not list coherence and rigor in its materials. The other two publishers adhered to focus and coherence in most or all of their materials. All of the publishers fell short in the application of rigor in their textbook series.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / Prior to the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2009, writing was largely neglected in the education policy realm. However, the CCSS called for major shifts in the teaching of writing reinforced by the requirements of rigorous new standardized writing assessments. While the high stakes attached to these new assessments place all teachers under increased pressure to improve students’ writing, little is known about how teachers perceive the standards and assessments or how these are influencing classroom instruction. To address this need, this case study explored how English teachers at one urban high school made sense of their school’s new writing initiative, which incorporated use of CCSS-aligned, standardized writing assessments to improve students’ writing. In this longitudinal study, I drew from multiple, nested data sources, including interviews with teachers and school leaders, observations of department meetings, and teacher “think alouds” about students’ writing. Relying on the theoretical lenses of sense-making (Spillane et al., 2002) and communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), I argue that teachers’ sense-making of the writing initiative was individualized and heavily mediated by the standardized assessments they used. This study has three major findings. First, at the school level, there was a “coherence gap” between how the multiple, conflicting purposes of the initiative were represented to teachers and lack of organizational structures to support streamlined implementation. Second, at the department level, the discourse about writing was constrained by the decontextualized nature of the CCSS and the standardized writing assessments, which oversimplified teachers’ understandings of writing as a social process. Third, at the classroom level, teachers relied on two particularized dimensions of their professional knowledge – their “reform knowledge” and their “relational knowledge” – to exercise agency in implementation. Overall, teachers made meaning of the writing initiative in localized ways consistent with their established writing instruction and their perceptions of students’ needs. This study underscores the central importance of particularized teacher knowledge in translating reform meaningfully to the classroom. Until school leaders and policymakers recognize teachers’ knowledge as valuable and create opportunities for teachers to share this knowledge with others, reforms are unlikely to be successful. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / Across the nation, most states are implementing a new set of standards- and accountability-based reforms: the Common Core State Standards and their accompanying assessments. Unfortunately, the perspectives of school-based educators are largely missing from policy and implementation decisions about the Common Core. To address some of the gaps in previous research, the purpose of this dissertation—a comparative case study of two middle schools on the East Coast of the United States—was to describe and analyze school-based educators’ perceptions of and responses to the Common Core and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Exam. Data analysis revealed that educators in the two schools generally worked from an inquiry stance on teaching, learning, and schooling (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) in that they collectively and critically analyzed the intentions of educational policy and practice based in part on their beliefs about student-centered, constructivist teaching and learning. Consistent with this perspective, they made sense of the Common Core and SBAC based on the degree of alignment they perceived between their own educational values and beliefs, on the one hand, and the values and beliefs that animated the policies, on the other hand, which I conceptualized as “principled sensemaking.” How the educators actually implemented the Common Core and SBAC was the result of the intersection of their principled sensemaking of these standards-based reforms and the degree of agency they had over policy implementation. I termed this type of response to policy “principled implementation.” Four types of principled implementation were identified: principled adoption, principled neglect, principled compliance, and principled resistance. New understandings of school-based educators’ unique, critical, and nuanced perceptions of the Common Core and SBAC and how they believe the Common Core and SBAC influence teaching and learning have the capacity to inform decisions about the future of the Common Core in schools, and contributes to a broader understanding of how school-based educators take up and respond to standards- and accountability-based reforms. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Diana Pullin / In recent years, critical race theory (CRT) has garnered much attention in education scholarship as a way to examine the racialized practices that persist in U.S. schooling. This study was a grassroots attempt at using CRT as the theoretical framework to engage a group of administrators and teacher leaders at one urban school in inquiry-based discourse that focused on raising the educators' race consciousness and co-constructing an antiracist pedagogy. A combined method of action research and critical case study was used as the research methodology. This dissertation reports on three notable findings that surfaced from the study. One, the participants largely perceived racism an individual pathology, not as a system of privilege. Because the participants regarded themselves as educators who were committed to social justice, they were often deceived by their activism to recognize their own complicity in the perpetuation of racist ideologies in their practice. Two, despite the overwhelming criticisms against NCLB in scholarly literature, the participants at this low-income, racially-diverse, urban school were passionately in favor of the goals behind the statute. With the recent push toward the development of common core content standards through the Race to the Top program, increased dialogue regarding what knowledge should be considered "common" and "core" needs to occur in order to breach the impasse between the divergent curricular viewpoints held by all stakeholders. Three, although culturally relevant pedagogy is widely espoused and utilized in educational research and practice, it is often not commonly understood as a conceptual framework that advocates the three-pronged elements of academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. Findings revealed wide misconceptions and misuse of the theory that stemmed from teachers' cultural bias, the nature of racism in school settings, and the lack of support to adequately implement theories into practice. ` All of these findings revealed issues of power, positionality, and privilege that were deeply entrenched in the policies and practices of the school, which suggested that greater collaboration between scholars and practitioners was necessary in order to engender ongoing critical self-reflection and reconceptualization of theories as viable pedagogical tools to begin the work of antiracism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.