School Reform Lexicon

  
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Synonyms for and terms indicative of "School Reform"

• Closing the Achievement Gap (i.e., white-black and white-hispanic difference in mean scores on high-stakes tests)
• Traditional education
• Back-to-Basics
• Basic education
• Corporatist School Reform
• Industrialized education
• Charter schools... [Index]
• Miltary charter schools
• Militaristic or highly regimented charter schools
• Top-Down administration
• Centralization and elimination of Site-Based Management
• Renaissance
• Community engagement
• Public-private partnerships
• Weak school boards
• Mayoral appointment of School Board Directors
• No Child Left Behind (NCLB) - Federal legislation

Terms Pertaining to No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

• Closing the Achievement Gap
• Accountability (internal article)
• Annual Yearly Progress (AYP)
• Highly Qualified teachers (HQT) 
• Supplemental Educational Services (SES)

Reformist Terms Pertaining to Monitoring and Assessment

• High Stakes Tests (internal article)
• Teacher Quality Assessment
• Instructional Leadership
• The Learning Walk
• Benchmark tests

Terms Pertaining to Use of Assessment Results

• Data-driven decision making (DDDM)
• Performance Management System
• Failed schoools
• Student promotion decisions
• Teacher promotion/dismissal/incentives/bonuses; Merit Pay
• District interventions: School closure, reconstitution, "Turn-around," interim principals,
• Reconstitution of failed schools as charter schools

Reformist Terms Pertaining to Pedagogical Approach

• Teaching-to-the-test
• Narrowly-focused instruction
• Direct instruction and Scripted lessons
• Drill-and-skill 
• Industrialized education 

Reformist Terms Pertaining to Curriculum

• Core curriculum
• Curriculum alignment
• Uniform national standards
• Unpaid internships in high school
• on-line learning
• small rewards and punishments

Terms that are identified with the Charter Schools:

• Innovation
• Competition
• School Choice movement
• Military
• "Bubble kids"
• Parent-student-school contracts
• Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics (U. Chicago)

Miscellaneous terms that signal a corporatist reform agenda:

• The Broad Academy of Superintendents
  
• Superintendent's Plan of Entry
• Strategic Plan;
• Outside Stakeholders

Major financial supporters of Corporate School Reform and Charter Schools

• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• The Broad Foundation
• The Stuart Foundation
• The Walton Family Foundation