The Ideal of Standards and the Reality of Schools: Needed Research

A well-written and thoughtful background piece from K-12 perspective. Argues that commonly called for instructional changes are often difficult to put into practice.

Calls for research that is 1) approached from multiple perspectives, 2) conducted in the 'real world', 3) focuses on interventions into conventional school practice, 4) does not assume change can be driven from top down, 5) is interpretive in nature, 6) focuses on student roles and student work, 7) gives major attention to teacher learning, 8) attends to parents' concerns, and 9) is approached systemically.
 
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001JRScT..38....3A