N.R.C. Official Joins Standards Project on Science Assessments

By Peter West

WASHINGTON--A National Academy of Sciences official who has been central to its efforts to devise national standards for science content, teaching, and assessment has resigned to develop the science component of a national curriculum-reform initiative.

Elizabeth K. Stage, who has directed the review and synthesis of comments by educators on the academy's standards-setting efforts almost since the project's inception early last year, left the academy's National Research Council last month to join the New Standards Project.

New Standards is a partnership of six school districts and 16 states that aims to promote reform by developing a stringent system of outcomes-based examinations in such core subjects as mathematics and English and then creating a challenging curriculum to prepare students to...