The Politics of Curriculum and Testing: introduction and overview

TLDR: For example, state governments have become especially active in two domains, curriculum and accountability (Elmore et al. 1990, McDonnell and Fuhrman 1986), and nearly all states adopted policies to generate and disseminate more detailed assessments of student performance.

Abstract: Throughout the past two decades, state governments have assumed a more expansive, aggressive, and prescriptive role in many domains of education policy (Mitchell 1988). Since the mid 1980s, state governments have become especially active in two domains, curriculum and accountability (Elmore et al. 1990, McDonnell and Fuhrman 1986). In this fairly brief time period, nearly all states enacted policies to inspire or require more rigor in the academic component of the school program and nearly all states adopted policies to generate and disseminate more detailed assessments of student performance (Blank, this volume).