Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 108 Part 1.djvu/258

 108 STAT. 232 PUBLIC LAW 103-227—MAR. 31, 1994 eral, State, or local public agencies, with or without reimbursement therefore; and (C) may accept voluntary and uncompensated services, (d) NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, CURRICU- LUM, AND ASSESSMENT. — (1) FINDINGS.— The Congress finds as follows: (A) The current achievement levels of students in the United States are far below those that might indicate competency in challenging subject matter in core content areas. (B) During the last 20 years, relatively little changed in how students were taught. Despite much research suggesting better alternatives, classrooms continue to be dominated by textbooks, teacher lectures, short-answer activity sheets, and unequal patterns of student attention. (C) Despite progress in narrowing the gaps, the dif- ferences in performance between Caucasian students and their minority counterparts remain unacceptably large. While progress has been made in reducing the gender gap in mathematics, such gap still remains at higher levels of problem solving. Too little progress has been made in reducing gender performance gaps favoring males in science and females in writing. (2) PURPOSE.— The purpose of the National Institute on Student Achievement, Curriculum, and Assessment is to carry out a coordinated and comprehensive program of research and development to provide research-based leadership to the United States as it seeks to improve student achievement in core content areas and the integration of such areas. Such program shall— (A) identify, develop, and evaluate innovative and exemplary methods to improve student knowledge at all levels in the core content areas, such as— (i) student learning and assessment in various subject matters; (ii) the effects of organizational patterns on the delivery of instruction, including issues of grouping and tracking, ungraded classrooms, and on the effects of various pedagogies, including the issues of technology in education; (iii) standards for what students should know and be able to do, particularly standards of desired performance set to internationaly competitive levels; (iv) methods to improve the process of reading, the craft of writing, the growth of reasoning skills, and the development of information-finding skills; (v) enabling students to develop higher order thinking skills; (vi) methods to teach effectively all students in mixed-ability classrooms; (vii) curriculum, instruction, and assessment, in vocational education and school-to-work transition; (viii) the impact and effectiveness of Federal, State, and local efforts to provide gender-fair educational opportunities to elementary and secondary students; (ix) programs, policies, and approaches which promote gender equity in elementary and secondary education;

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