NCEE
Encyclopedia
The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) is a not-for-profit, policy
Policy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...

 analysis and development organization based in Washington, DC. It was formed by its current president, Marc Tucker
Marc Tucker
Marc S. Tucker is the president and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy. He is an internationally recognized expert on education reform and a leader in benchmarking the policies and practices of the countries with the best education systems in the world.Tucker recently...

, with the stated mission: “To analyze the implications of changes in the international economy for American education, formulate an agenda for American education based on that analysis and seek wherever possible to accomplish that agenda through policy change and development of the resources educators would need to carry it out.” [1]

In 1989, NCEE created the National Alliance for Restructuring Education (NARE), which was aimed at promoting student performance in large urban districts and progressive states through standards-based education reform
Standards-based education reform
Education reform in the United States since the 1980s has been largely driven by the setting of academic standards for what students should know and be able to do. These standards can then be used to guide all other system components. The SBE reform movement calls for clear, measurable standards...

. That same year, NCEE created the bi-partisan Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and a year later the organization produced the report America’s Choice: high skills or low wages! [2]

In 1992 NCEE, in conjunction with 23 states and 6 cities, created the New Standards Project. The goal of New Standards was to develop standards for the core subjects in the curriculum and applied learning standards coupled with new assessment instruments designed to measure those standards using new, complex performance tasks that more closely resemble real world problems, thereby providing a rich context in which students could demonstrate their knowledge and skills [3].

Six years later, in 1998 NCEE created the America’s Choice School Design Program based on the work of NARE and New Standards.[2] The program provides research-based school instructional intervention solutions and programs for states, districts, and schools. In 2010, Pearson
Pearson PLC
Pearson plc is a global media and education company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is both the largest education company and the largest book publisher in the world, with consumer imprints including Penguin, Dorling Kindersley and Ladybird...

 acquired America’s Choice from NCEE, with the vision of bringing the America’s Choice model to a worldwide market [4].

In 1999, NCEE launched the National Institute for School Leadership, a program designed to train principals for high performing schools. The Institute has since served more than 3,800 principals in 14 states, and was adopted as the primary statewide professional development
Professional development
Professional development refers to skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Professional development encompasses all types of facilitated learning opportunities, ranging from college degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning...

 program in both Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

.[5] NISL now offers other professional development programs focused on specific issues such as early childhood
Early childhood
For the video game rating with a similar age group see ESRBEarly childhood is a stage in human development. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterwards. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood.-Education:Infants and toddlers experience...

, English Language Learners, excellence in science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 and students with disabilities
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...

.

NCEE’s most recent school-improvement program is the Board Examination Systems Program, an initiative to increase the number of students graduating from high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 who are prepared to do college-level work.[1] The program provides a system of examinations aligned to curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

 and teacher professional development that have been benchmarked to worldclass standards. The program will be piloted starting the fall of 2011 in several states including Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 and Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

. Four organizations have been certified to offer their board examination systems during the pilot program: ACT-Quality Core [6], University of Cambridge International Examinations (Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge Advanced), International Baccalaureate (IB Diploma Programme), and The College Board (Advanced Placement Program).


External links

[1] Official NCEE website

[2] America’s Choice History

[3] National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

[4] America’s Choice Press Release

[5] NISL

[6] ACT-Quality Core
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK