{"content":[{"text":"Journal of Research in Rural Education, 2007, 22(2)","bbox":{"left":0.102941,"top":0.063653,"width":0.34565399999999996,"height":0.016842999999999997}},{"text":"Standards-Based Reform of Mathematics Education \n in Rural High Schools \n Aimee Howley, William Larson, Solange Andrianaivo, \n Megan Rhodes, and Marged Howley \n Ohio University","bbox":{"left":0.17158,"top":0.1053,"width":0.6568239999999999,"height":0.13387899999999997}},{"text":"Citation: Howley, A., Larson, W., Solange, A., Rhodes, M., & Howley, M. (2007, May 17). Standards- \n based reform of mathematics education in rural high schools. Journal of Research in Rural Education, \n 22(2). Retrieved [date] from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/22-2.pdf","bbox":{"left":0.161765,"top":0.253667,"width":0.6765030000000001,"height":0.04714600000000002}},{"text":"Researchers interviewed rural high school principals in order to learn about reform of mathematics education in their \n schools. Twenty principals from three rural regions of Ohio participated. A member of the research team conducted a \n semi-structured interview with each principal. Analysis of interview data suggested that schools were undertaking reform \n of mathematics education in response to state accountability standards and tests. Principals understood the reforms in a \n cursory way, recognizing that the reform agenda focused in a general sense on math for understanding, technology, and \n real world applications of mathematics. Their responses indicated that the reforms adopted at their schools neither fully \n embraced the reform agenda nor completely ignored it. Instead, the reforms tended to entail incremental changes involving \n curriculum alignment, minor modiﬁ cations of curriculum content, and provision of individualized instruction.","bbox":{"left":0.102941,"top":0.319991,"width":0.794203,"height":0.12147799999999997}},{"text":"Historically, efforts to reform rural schools have re- \n sponded to cosmopolitan interests and aims (e.g., Kliebard, \n 2002). In fact, an accumulating body of evidence seems to \n show that, under pressure to reform, educators from locales \n of all types across the nation tend to select strategies that \n respond closely to state-promulgated standards and account- \n ability tests (e.g., Jester, 2002; Posner, 2004). \n Nevertheless, there are also countervailing pressures. \n Rural educators and community members tend to value tra- \n ditional approaches to curriculum and instruction (Howley, \n 2003). Moreover, some research suggests that, in certain \n contexts, the sorts of traditional practices that rural com- \n munities favor may indeed be more effective than reform \n practices (Mussoline & Shouse, 2001). At the same time, \n progressive educators who write about rural schools often \n advocate “place-based education,” an approach that attends \n in explicit ways to features of the natural or social envi- \n ronments of rural places (e.g., Jennings, 2000; Jennings, \n Swidler, & Koliba, 2005; Smith, 2002). \n Despite conjectures about what might represent reason- \n able curriculum reforms in rural high schools, little empirical \n evidence documents the dynamics or consequences of such \n reforms. A few relevant studies demonstrate the implemen- \n tation of structural reforms such as detracking (Rudnitski,","bbox":{"left":0.102941,"top":0.467049,"width":0.382431,"height":0.36532800000000004}},{"text":"1994), curriculum alignment (Jester, 2002), and community \n engagement (Kushman & Barnhardt, 2001). And a few oth- \n ers explore reforms in the content of instruction, including \n studies focusing on integrated language arts (Shanks, Alvin, \n & Schmidt-Lyga, 1995), standards-based science education \n (Veal & Elliott, 1996), and the adoption of comprehensive \n school reform models (Carlson, 2000). Among these studies, \n however, little attention has been devoted either to reform \n of mathematics education or to principals’ perceptions of \n and participation in reform. \n Adding to the limited body of knowledge about reform \n of curriculum in rural high schools, this study analyzed and \n interpreted information from principals regarding changes in \n mathematics education at their schools. Two research ques- \n tions provided a focus for the study: (a) How do principals \n of rural high schools think about reform of mathematics \n education? (b) What approaches to reform of mathematics \n education do rural principals report are being adopted at \n their high schools?","bbox":{"left":0.514706,"top":0.467049,"width":0.382417,"height":0.28957000000000005}},{"text":"Related Literature","bbox":{"left":0.646683,"top":0.770079,"width":0.11843100000000006,"height":0.016843000000000052}},{"text":"Two bodies of literature seem particularly relevant \n to this study. Literature about what constitutes reform of \n mathematics education offers a normative framework for \n understanding the expectations that national and state stan- \n dards for mathematics education place on local schools. And \n literature about recent reforms of rural high schools provides \n a basis for situating the practices used in the high schools \n investigated in this study in relation to practices reported in","bbox":{"left":0.514706,"top":0.800383,"width":0.3824209999999999,"height":0.1229030000000001}},{"text":"The authors would like to express their thanks to the follow- \n ing research assistants: Brian Boyd, Victor Brown, Roni Hayes, \n Longun Lado, Sue Nichols, and Ron Smith. \n Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed \n to Aimee Howley, Ohio University, 133 McCracken Hall, Athens, \n OH 45701. (howley@ohio.edu)","bbox":{"left":0.102941,"top":0.848997,"width":0.382391,"height":0.083341}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}