Historians often identify Horace Mann and other middle-class reformers of the mid-nineteenth century as the catalysts of the Common School Movement, the forerunner of today's public school systems. Despite education historians' focus on Mann and his ilk as the original advocates of common schooling, the notion of free universal public education…

Rather than regard frequent and subjective testing as a negative, it should prove more beneficial for educators to offer students an opportunity to acquire life skills that will carry them through any test-taking situation. Offering students the skills necessary to succeed not only in the classroom but also through testing is where accountability…

This article examines the contribution of the No Child Left Behind Act. The authors believe that the "other means" that can substantially advance equal educational opportunity are to provide "meaningful educational opportunities" for all children in each of the schools that they attend. In this article, the authors discuss meaningful educational…

In this essay, the authors discuss what it might take to develop knowledge that can help education policymakers and schools attain their goals. In reading both the research and the current policy environment, the authors identify several fundamental reasons why it is so difficult to develop the knowledge needed to inform policies that might enable…

In this article the author expresses her views concerning the pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina public educational trend in New Orleans. She observes that the segregation that existed before Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, due in part to migration to the suburbs and in part to the proliferation of private and parochial schools, has divided…

Based on public opinion, public schools have never made the kind of dramatic, positive impact on the lives of the poor that it originally intended. In order to assess whether public schools are effective or not, the author attempts to answer several questions. These questions include: (1) Is school a sorting mechanism?; (2) Is public education a…

Examines the standards movement, criticizing the inappropriateness of many proposed benchmarks. Argues that national standards are a xenophobic reaction to foreign competition and serve narrow nationalistic interests, rather than the goal of developing the fullest potential of learners. (SK)

Six years ago the late Commissioner of Education, James Allen, proclaimed the "Right-to-Read" as the educational target of the current decade. The object of this program was to develop reading skills among Americans lacking such skills. An evaluation of that program was presented. (Author/RK)

Presented are two models that indicate the set of competencies, and the systematic procedures for implementing those competencies, for preventing learning problems in young children. (Author/RK)

Describes a program, launched by the New Haven (Connecticut) Public School System, that involved parents, as well as other members of the family, in a variety of activities that promoted reading growth of children. (Author/RK)

One hundred twenty social studies programs published during the period 1969-71 were examined to determine if they contained characteristics of the new social studies. (Author)