As the standards movement continues into its third decade, there remains a need for alignment methodologies that can be broadly applied to study instruction and policy. This article reports on a series of development efforts meant to revise the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) surveys and methods to study the implementation of new college-and career-readiness standards. The work included a meeting of content experts, a series of cognitive interviews, two validation studies, and a small pilot. We discuss both the results of the specific studies and the implications of the work for other potential users of the SEC or SEC-like tools.
To better understand the complexities of state education governance systems, this study uses Brewer and Smith's (2008) framework to examine the structures, policies, and processes in each state's K–12 education system. We conducted a legislative review to examine three dimensions of educational governance: (1) level of control, (2) distribution of authority, and (3) degree of participation. The resulting 7 indicators and 35 sub-indicators were weighted to create a typology that sorts states into eight possible designations. This typology enables policymakers and future researchers to understand how various policies enhance or inhibit educational goals in different state settings.
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