Noting that the recent call for holistic models of schooling dictates a thorough investigation of more natural groupings of students, this collection of articles reviews available literature on multiage, nongraded, continuous progress classrooms. Divided into six sections, the chapters explore the overriding concerns and the pros and cons of such instruction, delineate the procedures and practices associated with multiage instruction, illustrate actual classroom practice, and examine issues of evaluation and accountability in such classrooms. The chapters are: (1) "The First 30 Years Were the Fairest" (Connell), tracing the history of schooling from Sputnik to the late 1980s; (2) "The Dual-Age Classroom: Questions and Answers" (Woelfel); (3) "The Return of the Nongraded Classroom" (Anderson); (4) "The Pros and Cons of Mixed-Age Grouping (Lodish); (5) "On the Merits of Multiage Classrooms" (Pratt); (6) "A Study of Multi-Age or Family-Grouped Classrooms" (Milburn); (7) "The Benefits of Nongraded Schools" (Pavan); (8) "The Nongraded Elementary School: Great Potential, but Keep It Simple" (Slavin); (9) "Nongradedness: Not Simply a Grouping Scheme" (Pavan); (10) "A Look at Multi-Age Classrooms" (Cohen); (11) "Grouping Students and Helpful Suggestions for Combination Classrooms" (DelForge and others); (12) "The Nongraded Classroom in Practice" (Gaustad); (13) "Teaching and Learning in the Multigrade Classroom: Student Performance and Instructional Routines" (Miller); (14) "High Expectations for Multi-Age Classrooms," a reprint of five papers by Anderson, Fogarty, Rae, Chapman and Schrenko, and Schrenko; (15) "A K/1 Class Can Work--Wonderfully!" (Nachbar); (16) "A Nongraded, Multi-Aged Program That Works" (Oberlander); (17) "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Combination Class" (Freeman); (18) "The Integrated Technology Classroom: An Experiment in Restructuring Elementary School Instruction" (Held and others); (19) "Student Achievement in Multigrade and Single Grade Classes" (Brown and Martin); (20) "The Consensus Classroom" (Sartor), on student decision making in the classroom; (21) "Kidwatching: Observing Children in the Classroom" (Goodman); (22) "What Is a Portfolio?" (Burke); and (27) "How Do We Know We're Getting Better?" (Jeroski and Brownlie). (HTH)