Reviews research on the association between school size and educational outcomes and considers policy implications of that research. Suggests a shift of value from large size to small size. Describes current state finance formulas, with an emphasis on sparsity and geographical isolation factors. Identifies policy considerations relative to the use…

Explores the issue of school choice as it pertains to town tuitioning in Maine. Includes the historical development of town tuitioning and current patterns by region and school type. Argues that town tuitioning provides substantial numbers of rural high school students and their parents with opportunities to choose high schools. (KS)

Describes an inservice teacher training program for educators in early childhood special education in rural South Carolina using telecommunications, telementoring, and teletraining. The program evaluation shows significant improvements in participants' self-reported competency in using computers, understanding research journals, and using research…

Describes inequitable funding of education in New Hampshire which is based on regressive property taxes and lottery revenues. Despite a politically conservative state legislature opposed to new taxes, a survey of over 500 citizens indicates support for equalized funding efforts through the raising of broad-based state income or sales taxes. (KS)

Administered an open-ended survey to 187 rural and urban tenth grade students in Minnesota. Students were asked to describe their community, state, nation, and world. Comparison of rural and urban students' responses revealed both similarities and differences. Discusses implication for rural education and rural education research. (Author/KS)

Assesses the effects of human capital and social capital (social interaction that facilitates productive activity) on the probability of a student dropping out of high school using the High School and Beyond data set. The effects of human and social capital in combination significantly reduced the odds of dropout. (KS)

Studied the stability of special education services in rural areas by examining the records of 654 students in 10 school districts over a 3-year period. More than one of five students were terminated and about one in six were reclassified. Speech-language-impaired students were most likely to change, whereas severely mentally impaired were least…

Proper warm-up is important for any activity, but designing an effective warm-up can be time consuming. An alternative approach is to take a cue from Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) and consider movement design from the perspective of space and planes of motion. Efficient warm-up exercises using LMA are described. (SM)

Educators are discovering the importance of understanding individual student learning styles to promote effective teaching. The article discusses the learning style approach in coaching, where learning preferences are matched to coaching methods. It describes how that approach helped one high school wrestling coach develop a winning team. (SM)

A series of nine articles discusses how to meet the leisure needs of diverse populations, focusing on pluralism and gang prevention, children and AIDS, socialization for the homeless, homosexual youth, the unemployed, recovering alcoholics, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. (SM)

Reviews factors concerning fitness screening in teacher education programs and examines screening requirements in selected institutions in the United States, Canada, and in three Scandinavian countries--Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The purpose is to provide cross-cultural perspectives on the issue. (SM)

The Microcomputer Adaptive Testing High-Risk-Urban Students (MATH-R-US) project made computerized assessment an integral part of remedial high school mathematics at an inner-city school with predominantly African-American students. Results suggest that the girls exhibited greater self-esteem toward using computers than did boys and that…

Fifth and sixth grade children were assigned to three pretesting conditions: a full-length pretest, an adaptive pretest that exited learners when nonmastery was indicated, and a no pretest control. Learners in the adaptive treatment demonstrated higher levels of performance on the posttest and had greater motivation to continue the instruction.…

This study was designed to determine whether differences in performance on a popular instructional gaming package would be observed under differing conditions of color presentation. It was hypothesized that performance would be enhanced under a monochromatic and/or moderately colored condition, and least successful under a multicolored condition.…

Leaders in professional education and technology were invited to envision the role of technology in restructuring schools and to suggest experiences designed to prepare educational administrators for technology leadership. Responses describe future schools, school leadership, and the involvement of technology in shaping teacher role, curriculum,…