AeA Education Principles

Achieving Systemic Reforms

Standards: Students should be held to high-quality, rigorous academic standards that reflect the levels of achievement necessary to succeed in society, higher education, and the workplace.

Assessments: All students should be tested annually with high-quality assessments aligned to standards. The purpose must be to measure the progress of school, teacher, and student achievement against standards and to identify where additional support is needed for students to reach them.

Student Achievement: Assessments should be used as diagnostic tools to ensure that all students, particularly those identified as under-performing, receive the assistance they need to succeed in reaching high academic standards.

Accountability: All students, including disadvantaged and under-performing students, must meet high academic standards. There should be policies of rewards and sanctions to hold systems accountable for improving the performance of students, teachers, and principals. Such policies should be based on performance, including student achievement.

Flexibility: States, localities, and schools should have flexibility for their educational organization, innovation, and instruction while being held accountable for raising student achievement.

Alignment: Those responsible for educating our children must ensure that high quality assessments, accountability systems, teacher preparation and training, and curriculum are aligned with high standards so that students, teachers, parents, and administrators can measure progress against common expectations for student achievement.

Data, Research, and Best Practices: Student achievement data should be collected regularly, and made public in formats that can guide the decision-making of teachers, parents, and students to improve performance.

Areas of Special Focus

Math and Science Excellence: Efforts must be undertaken to increase significantly the number of skilled math and science teachers in K-12 by substantially improving the quality of their preparation and professional development and by expanding recruitment incentives.

Teacher Preparation and Training: Increasing the quality and training of teachers should be a top priority. Teachers must have the necessary skills and expertise in the content areas in which they teach. Teacher preparation and professional development programs should include training to integrate relevant technologies into the classroom.

Technology: Technology and the Internet must be integrated into all appropriate aspects of teaching and learning to improve students skills as well as educational accountability and administrative effectiveness.

For more information, contact Alan Vazquez, Director of 
Procurement Policy and Workforce Issues

This page was last updated on 03/04/08.  
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