Cuban says schools reflect our society's fascination with fads, which increases their vulnerability to pressures from different constituencies. The most long-lasting innovations have avid supporters and equitable intent. Kindergarten and preschool education are prime examples. Policymakers' efforts to change classroom teaching practice usually…

Kohn believes the "tougher standards" movement is incompatible with personalized learning, excellence, and marginalized kids' interests. Horizontal standards that shift how teaching and learning happen in classrooms are terrific, but vertical standards using traditional pedagogy are macho and mindless. Kids need freedom to design their own…

Hirsch believes it is vitally important to specify the "core knowledge" that all students must learn. Here, Hirsch explains elements of his K-8 core-knowledge sequence. Teachers should avoid canned lessons but should know where they are going. New English standards are unacceptable, since they omit Shakespeare's works. (MLH)

Author Beverly Daniel Tatum explains that adolescents tend to self-segregate because their racially different friends are not having (or sharing) same experiences. Many white students are oblivious to racism's power and manifestations in society. During lunch or recess, students should be able to relax with friends. However, educators should…

Suggests a child's overall development is what makes academic learning possible. Notes that intelligence, the capacity to gain and use knowledge to solve problems and promote well-being, is comprised of cognitive, affective, and expressive components. Asserts that children need relationships with caring adults. Notes the School Development Program…

Emotional intelligence involves a cluster of skills, including self-control, zeal, persistence, and self-motivation. Every child must be taught the essentials of handling anger, managing conflicts, developing empathy, and controlling impulses. Schools must help children recognize and manage their emotions. Educators should model emotional…

Will greater school choice result in more responsive, higher quality schools and happier parents? Or will proliferating options further sort students and families by race, social class, and special interest? Increasingly, education is viewed as a private good. If parents become autonomous, self-interested consumers, erosion of common purposes and…

In 1997, former Edmonton (Alberta) school superintendent Michael Strembitsky instituted school-based management in seven schools. Although the district retained policymaking responsibility, schools could decide matters such as class organization, number of teachers, and budgeting for learning resources and equipment. Giving schools control over…

Two experts, Crawford Kilian and Clifford Stoll, disagree about the Internet's proper role in education. Kilian believes teachers must steer students through information "white water" to utilize the net more productively. Stoll thinks Internet will do little to resolve kids' reading deficiencies, restore music and art programs, or enhance…

The desire for students to graduate with more than basic skills has fueled interest in performance assessment methods such as essay writing, group science experiments, or portfolio preparation. Officials in Vermont, California, Kentucky, Maryland, and other states are betting that performance assessments may prove as powerful a classroom influence…

Although there are many gaps between schools and the workplace, encouraging changes include erosion of the walls separating academic and vocational programs; better information about necessary skills, knowledge, and habits of mind; and emerging systemic plans to address the school-to-work transition issue. Helping all students learn work-related…

The top businesses are discovering that, to get high organizational performance, they must assign frontline workers duties and responsibilities that typically have been given only to management and senior professional personnel. To help schools catch up with a changing world economy, students should achieve a certain mastery level by age 16…

Unskilled and low-level jobs are rapidly disappearing, partly through technological advances. High school graduates are functionally illiterate. The college prep curriculum is too theoretical; the vocational curriculum is more relevant, but its watered-down academics attract less capable students. To enter today's competitive job market, students…

The author of "The Fifth Discipline" says most schools are not learning organizations. Educators are too isolated and rule-bound to experience collective learning and engage students. Deep learning is learner-driven. Learning communities enhance people's collective capacity to create and pursue overall visions. Schools must exchange stratification…

Within the next decade, national standards describing essential outcomes in various school subjects could become the glue holding together curriculum frameworks and guides, textbook adoption, staff development, and student assessment. This article discusses confusion over definitions and intentions, raises questions about delivery and assessment…