The disintegration of teacher certification programs in the united States holds an eerie similarity to the recent meltdown of American financial institutions. Similarly, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, whose purported purpose was to ensure that all students get highly qualified teachers (HQT), has had an unintentionally devastating effect on…

Traditional ways of teaching--working from a textbook, designing quizzes, and assigning seat work--are predicated on the idea of students' ability and desire to self-regulate. However, these sedentary techniques are ineffective with unmotivated students and poor readers. Teachers commonly invoke fear of failure in an attempt to engage students in…

In the opinions of 52 high schools students who kept journals regarding their feelings about school, schools are irrelevant, dull, sterile, or worse; they despised unenthusiastic teachers teaching uninteresting lessons from textbooks. The increased emphasis on testing and accountability will probably will not change these opinions. (JOW)