ACCOUNTABILITY AND CURRICULUM
REFORM EFFORT
REFORM EFFORT
Gary Williamson, Director of Accountability Operations
North Carolina's Accountability and Curriculum Reform Effort - also known as ACRE - is the state's comprehensive initiative to redefine the Standard Course of Study for K-12 students, the student testing program and the school accountability model. In undertaking this ambitious work, North Carolina education leaders are the first in the nation to address learning standards, student tests and school accountability simultaneously. Quite simply, this is the most important and significant work of the State Board of Education and Department of Public Instruction in a generation.
This work, being completed in stages over five years, will
- identify the most critical knowledge and skills that students need to learn - filtering the "must have" elements of the curriculum from the "nice to have" elements;
- create new student tests for grades 3-8 and high school courses that use more open-ended questions, more technology and more real-world applications of what students learn; and
- provide a new model for measuring school success that gives parents and educators more relevant information about how well schools are preparing students for college, work and adulthood.
North Carolina was a pioneer in school accountability in the mid-1990s when the state's education and political leaders developed the ABCs of Public Education, the current school accountability model. At that time, few states were able to measure student academic growth from year to year and use this information to evaluate school performance.
With ACRE, North Carolina once again finds itself in a pioneer role. When the ACRE work is in place, North Carolina will have a 21st century model that identifies what students should know and clearly measures whether students are on track for success after high school.
The ACRE work involves many educators from across North Carolina - classroom teachers, school administrators, content and curriculum experts from the Department of Public instruction, university and community college faculty and national experts on curriculum design and testing. While ACRE is on a fast-track schedule, this work will take time to unfold and take effect statewide. In order to be reasonable about how much change can be implemented at once, there is a schedule for addressing each subject area and its following assessments. The new accountability model for schools and tracking student growth over time will be the final phase of ACRE work.
This site is your window to ACRE. Here, you can access the history of ACRE, its development and implementation timelines and documents and resources being used to guide these efforts.