Research shows that personal connections and interests are vital to the resilience of at-risk children (Polakow, 1993). We know that attachments in early childhood, especially between birth and age three, matter a great deal. Even in the face of incredible hardship, parents or other mentors can successfully ease these troubles. Teachers can have…

College teaching can be as rewarding as a K-12 career and, whether in elementary school or college, students deserve good teachers. College professors who prepare teachers can have a tremendous impact on K-12 classrooms for decades into the future. However, career paths vary widely, and the path to teaching in higher education is as unique as the…

Although schools have always struggled with student failure, retention, and attrition, the turn of the new century has produced added pressures for schools to reduce student dropout rates. In the current political and economic environment, increased costs and reduced budgets are forcing difficult choices in how best to spend limited resources.…

Roosevelt University students in elementary and secondary education, mathematics, and psychology served as mentors to groups of seventh-grade girls in the GO-GIRL Program during two spring semesters. This brief, descriptive essay will address the overall impact of mentoring on student mentors in the GO-GIRL Program, particularly what the…

In this article, the author talks about the school's moral responsibility and illustrates the extent that a K-12 school and its staff are responsible for its students' economic success. All school reform is based on a relatively simple model: an intervenor (the reform agent) produces change(s) in certain school variables to cause a change in…

Policymakers target educational accountability primarily at public school administrators and teachers, rather than also include the broader society in which schools are housed and where poverty thrives. This article proposes a process through which community members can develop a report card to determine the educational capacity of a region and…

Cyber schools, also known as virtual schools, are noteworthy charter school developments that provide viable options for education. Charter schools in general and cyber charter schools in particular are not "revenue neutral" to local school districts. Nationwide, hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for education are being routed into charter…

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…

Given the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, one might reasonably assume that the research literature on the effects of standardized testing would have been exposed, made widely familiar, and meticulously analyzed in the early 2000s. But just the opposite happened. As belief in the research literature's nonexistence has spread,…

In this article, the authors discuss the basic psychological and biological differences between boys and girls, including the way in which society perceives them, and how the parents and schools interact with them. They present the overall current statistics and common observations about gender gaps in schools. To mention a few, boys are becoming…

In this article, the author first sets forth theoretical reasons for African American males' location in national disciplinary trends. Special emphasis is placed on the role of culture as a key factor in why Black boys lead the most measures of behavioral sanctions. Next, she analyzes how research findings centered on African American and boys'…

Most of us who are parents would pay an attorney a lot of money to prevent the unjust incarceration of one of our children in a confined space with psychopaths, wouldn't we? So just why are we paying the government a lot of money to unjustly incarcerate nearly all of our children in confined spaces with psychopaths? Most of us try hard to stay…

At this writing former President Reagan has just been interred with much pomp, plus hours of nationally televised praise. Some enthusiasts have even proposed carving the former president's countenance into Mount Rushmore. History will decide whether or not Mr. Reagan ranks as a great, or even good, president. But the indecorous rush to laud his…

For more than two decades, the United States has been struggling to improve public education. In April 1983 the federal report "A Nation at Risk" stunned the nation with its dire warning that "a rising tide of mediocrity" was swamping our schools. A spate of articles and editorials on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary last spring concluded…

The signing of the No Child Left Behind Act on January 8, 2002, moved the federal effort to influence K-12 schooling to a new and higher level--more aggressive, focused, and directive. The act requires that school districts and schools demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward a particular goal: universal student achievement of standards…