Perceptions of Washington State social studies teachers regarding the National Council for the Social Studies standards and Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements

The National educational standards movement is presently affecting a number of changes in the education systems of all fifty states. There are still many unanswered questions among the nation's educators as to the impact the standards movement is likely to have on education as standards become reality in the year 2000.; This study has been an effort to answer these questions by collecting data that indicates how Washington state teachers of social studies, grades 4–12, perceive the National Council for the Social Studies Standards, and the Washington state Academic Learning Requirements. Surveys were sent to 129 teachers; 51 teachers completed surveys (a 40% return rate) during the academic year 1997–1998, by responding to questions about the National Council for the Social Studies standards and the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements. Participants wrote responses to five narrative questions. Data were analyzed quantitatively on survey items. Responses to narrative questions formed patterns which were categorized and set to the theoretical frameworks of Sergiovanni & Surratt's supervision theory (1983, 1993), and Sergiovanni (1996); Kimbrough's (1964), political power and educational decision making model, and Owen's (1991) organizational behavior in education theory.; The major conclusion that was reached in this study was that teachers must be a part of the political and organizational decision making processes if it is expected that the education policies and programs imposed upon them will be successfully accomplished by teachers and students in the nation's schools.