The Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) and the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching (CRC) propose a three and one half-year study of the content and effects of post-reform secondary school math and science. The overall goals of this study are (1) to provide answers to the next generation of questions that local, state, and national policymakers will ask about the effects of reform and (2) to increase policymakers' understanding of the factors that affect curriculum decisions and student achievement in response to increase academic requirements. The specific objectives of the study are (1) to fill a gap in existing research on curriculum regulation and student standards by conducting an intensive empirical study of actual content and its effects, (2) provide the policy community with a complete picture of the effects of curriculum standards as they are actually implemented in classrooms and schools and (3) to suggest how the design of state and local indicator systems can be modified and augmented to fill current gaps in understanding about student course-taking and achievement. The project will be conducted under the guidance of Susan Fuhrman (Rutgers), CPRE's director. Michael Kirst (CPRE-CRC, Stanford University) and Andrew Porter (CPRE-Wisconsin) will be co-principal investigators. William Clune will serve as senior researcher. Two project managers and several research assistants will participate in the research. Thomas Romberg (Center for the Center Learning and Teaching of Mathematics), Senta Raizen (National Center for the Improvement of Science Education) and Brian DeLany (CRC-Michigan State) will consult with the project. Milbrey McLaughlin (Stanford), CRC's director, will assure coordination with CRC research. Other consultants include university and practitioner experts in math and science. The study extends and builds on current CPRE and CRC research. The up-close, classroom-level look at reform comprises a critical but otherwise unaffordable element of the mission of both centers. Conversely, without the existing research on district- and school-level effects of curriculum and student standards reforms at the two centers, the proposed study could not be efficiently mounted.
