Sandra Stotsky

Sandra Stotsky is an advocate of standards-based reform and strong academic standards and assessments for students and teachers.

She is now Professor of Education Reform in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and holds the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality. Her research ranges from the quality of teacher licensure tests (e.g., [1] and [2]) to the question of gender bias in the English curriculum (e.g., [3]). She reviews influential books in education (e.g., [4]) and writes op-eds commenting on current educational fads (e.g., [5]).

From 2004 to 2006, she was a Research Scholar in the School of Education at Northeastern University. From 1984 to 2000, she was a research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education affiliated with the Philosophy of Education Research Center (PERC). For 12 years, she directed a summer institute on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, sponsored by the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation. From 1991-1997, she served as editor of Research in the Teaching of English, the research journal sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. On a consultant basis from 1992 to 2002, she worked for the United States Information Service and the U.S. State Department on the development of civic education programs in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Romania with educators and ministry officials in Eastern Europe. She has taught elementary school, French and German at the high school level, and undergraduate and graduate courses in reading, children's literature, and writing pedagogy.

She is editor of What's at Stake in the K-12 Standards Wars: A Primer for Educational Policy Makers (Peter Lang, 2000) and author of Losing Our Language (Free Press, 1999, reprinted by Encounter Books, 2002). Her publications address many areas and disciplines in education and include "School-related influences on grade 8 mathematics performance in Massachusetts" [6] and Progress in Mathematics Research Base (a 2005 review of mathematics education research and related reading research, for W.H. Sadlier, Inc.).

She currently serves as Chair of the Sadlier Mathematics Advisory Board, member of the Advisory Board for Pioneer Institute's Center for School Reform, and member of the Advisory Board for the Carus Publishing Company. She is also on the ERIC Steering Committee for the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences. She served on the Steering Committee for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment framework for 2009. She received a B.A. degree with distinction from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in reading research and reading education with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

While serving as Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1999 to 2003, she directed complete revisions of the state's preK-12 standards for every major subject that have been judged among the best in the country by independent experts. Both national and international assessments have attested to their academic quality.

On the 2005 and 2007 tests given by the NAEP, Massachusetts students scored first in grades 4 and 8 in mathematics and in grade 4 in reading, and tied for first in grade 8 in reading. The Bay State's low-income students had also made gains by 2007. When the scores of low-income students were compared with the scores of low-income students in the other states on NAEP's 2007 state results, it turns out that the Bay State's low-income students are tied for first place in mathematics in grades 4 and 8 and in reading in grade 4. And in grade 8 in reading, they are tied for second place. Results on international tests in mathematics and science given in 2007 were good for all students. Massachusetts 4th graders ranked second worldwide in science achievement and tied for third in mathematics; its 8th graders tied for first in science and ranked sixth in mathematics. The Bay State percent of public high school students passing Advanced Placement courses with a 3 or more is almost 21 percent—a larger percentage than most other states in the nation and well above the national average of 15.2 percent.

Stotsky also directed revisions of the Bay State's licensing regulations for teachers, administrators, and teacher training schools, as well as the state's tests for teacher licensure. These tests have also been considered among the strongest in the country and served to strengthen teacher preparation programs, for K-8 teachers in particular, after 2003. In addition, she planned and directed research projects on middle school mathematics education, a number of research reports on various curricular areas in preK-12 (on the Massachusetts Department of Education's website), and statewide conferences on history education, character education, mathematics education, and Structured English Immersion.

She was appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to serve on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel in 2006 and co-authored its final report: Foundations for Success: Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel [7], as well as two of its task group reports, one on Assessment [8], and the other on Conceptual Knowledge and Skills [9].

Essays