This report argues that if the United States is to have a vibrant democracy, avert the growth of a permanent underclass, and have a high-wage economy, schools must graduate the vast majority of students with achievement levels long thought possible only for a privileged few. In the face of an increasing demand for teachers, a declining supply of…

The purposes of the present investigation are to compare the structure and level of multidimensional self-concepts for boys and girls from England and Australia, and to demonstrate the use of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in making such comparisons. Subjects were random samples of 303 English preadolescents and 303 Australians that were…

This document reports the results of the National Study of Local Operations under Chapter 2 of the Educational Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. The 2-year study sought to (1) describe local district activities and operations under Chapter 2, the first federal education block grant, in the program's third year, noting changes occurring…

A 10-year profile is provided of Middle College High School (MCHS), an alternative high school operating under the joint auspices of the New York City Board of Education and LaGuardia Community College. The first sections of the report look at the history and goals of MCHS, explaining that the school was created to reduce the dropout rate among…

Tracking--the system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability--reflects the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate them. In the junior and senior high schools studied, there were clear differences between upper and lower tracks in: (1) content and quality of instruction, (2) teacher-student…

Marsh and Parker (1984) described the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) whereby equally able students have lower academic self-concepts in high-ability schools than in low-ability schools. The present investigation, a reanalysis of the Youth in Transition data, supported the generality of the earlier findings and demonstrated new theoretical…

During the 1985-1986 school year, the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) implemented the Writing to Read program, which is designed to improve the writing, language and vocabulary development, and reading of young children. The Planning, Monitoring, and Implementing (PMI) Evaluation Model for Decision Making was used to evaluate two…

Project SEED (Special Elementary Education for the Disadvantaged) is a supplementary mathematics program which applies Socratic discovery methods to mathematics instruction. It was implemented in 10 fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in Portland to improve mathematics achievement and increase students' esteem for mathematics learning. Student…

The Compensatory Language Experiences and Reading-Reading Recovery Program (CLEAR-RR) provided early intervention to 224 underachieving first grade pupils in Columbus, Ohio schools. The program's two major goals were to develop and provide CLEAR-RR for the first grade pupils and to adapt and apply the inservice program for teachers. Specially…

Results of a questionnaire on instructional leadership administered to elementary school principals and teachers in California confirmed literature findings that instructional leadership behavior significantly influences student achievement. The study sought to determine (1) the 29 most important instructional leadership behaviors through…

A handbook for those involved in Southeast Asian refugee assistance discusses some of the values and customs that refugee groups from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam may have in common and looks at the different countries and peoples of the region. A section on the shared values and customs of Indochinese refugees focuses on aspects of family life,…

Based on the premise that psychology can be an invaluable tool to mathematics educators, this book highlights how informal mathematics develops, how children construct their view of school arithmetic, and how mathematical thinking operates. The ideas offered are intended to assist teachers in making informed decisions concerning mathematics…

This report presents the results of a national survey on the status of the library media resources and services in elementary and secondary public and private schools in the United States in 1985. Also included are selected comparisons of survey results with the 1975 AASL (American Association of School Librarians)/AECT (Association for…

Children in Columbus, Ohio public schools participated in two nontraditional kindergarten programs during the 1986-1987 school year. Evaluations of the programs were undertaken to determine their success. One program involved a full day kindergarten that featured opportunities for increased personal and social development, as well as instruction…

This book collects articles that examine the patterns of dropping out evident among American youth, and the policies developed and implemented to reduce the incidence of dropping out. The following chapters (and their authors) are included: (1) Introduction (G. Natriello); (2) Can We Help Dropouts? Thinking about the Undoable (D. Mann); (3) Large…