Currents in Literacy

Web Resources

There are thousands of web sites that offer information on various issues concerning education and literacy. We have selected a sampling of sites that address these issues from a variety of viewpoints: parents, teachers, administrators, and elementary school students.

We hope these are informative and fun sites for you. If you have found others that you would like to share with our readers, please forward the URL to the editor at Currents in Literacy. (See page 2 for information.)

Organizations

http://www.cresst96.cse.ucla.edu/
The home page of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) includes links to an on-line article, "Beyond Test Scores: How Can Parents Judge the Quality of their Schools?" and other articles, newsletters, and policy briefs about testing. There is also a good Parents' Page with interesting links.

http://www.ccsso.org
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) webpage has articles on standards related to state initiatives and policy, school leader accreditation, and teacher licensing. Click on "Standards and Assessments" to find these resources. There is also information from all fifty states on their education agencies.

http://www.fairtest.org
FairTest, The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, is an advocacy organization "working to end the abuses, misuses and flaws of standardized testing and ensure that evaluation of students and workers is fair, open, and educationally sound." Includes an Assessment Reform Network, a discussion group, a quarterly newsletter, and factsheets.

www.resp-ed.org/
The Institute for Responsive Education is a research-based assistance and advocacy agency promoting the partnership of schools, families, and communities with the ultimate goal of success for all children. Their webpage has links to the Boston Parent Organizing Network to improve Boston public schools, charter school research, and the Responsive Schools Project.

http://www.classnj.org/
The website of The Center for Learning, Assessment, and School Structure (CLASS) features weekly articles, classroom activities, teacher ideas, and links to other sites. Under "Projects" find out about "Understanding by Design" -- the book, the video, the adult learning program, and collaborative effort involving CLASS and ASCD. There is a very useful bulletin board, Idea Exchange, for educators to brainstorm with each other.

http://www.jmu.edu/basicschool/
The Basic School Network is a school reform movement founded by the late Ernest Boyer. The Network helps schools set and meet high academic standards while developing responsibility and character within "core commonalities" that also take into account the diversity of students, teachers, and school cultures. Includes a bulletin board, news from Network schools, and background on the Basic School's philosophy.

Teachers

http://www.mos.org
Find out the current exhibits at Boston's Museum of Science. Teachers can check out "Educator's Cheapbook," a collection of inexpensive experiments for the science classroom. Students can sign up for Science-by-Mail, a national pen pal program for grades 4-9. Other science resources, local and national.

http://www.middleweb.com
This site explores Middle School Reform. A really wonderful section, Middle School diaries, has two middle school teachers sharing their classroom experiences on a weekly basis. There are also middle school news stories from around the country and interesting links for parents and for teacher professional development.

http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps
ALPS, Active Learning Practice for Schools, is an electronic community dedicated to the improvement and advancement of educational instruction and practice. The site creates an on-line collaboration between teachers and administrators from around the world with educational researchers, professors, and curriculum designers at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Project Zero. Multiple layers of resources for teachers and administrators to challenge their own teaching strategies.

Adult Literacy

www.literacyvolunteers.org/home/
The homepage for Literacy Volunteers of America, a national network of literacy programs focused on adult learners, has sections on family literacy, technology in literacy, and learning disabilities. Learn how you can become a literacy volunteer in your own community.

www.famlit.org/index.html
The National Center for Family Literacy is a non-profit organization supporting family literacy services for families across the United States through programming, training, research, advocacy and dissemination. The center's webpage has a listing of instructional publications and videos about family literacy, and access to their newsletter, Momentum.

www.pbs.org/adultlearning/literacy/index.html
The Literacy Links webpage provides access to telecourses for adult learners, links for GED instruction, and GED teacher cyberguides. A section called "Lit Linker Forum" provides the opportunity to ask questions of experts in the adult literacy field.