Master teachers working in real urban classrooms have shared their exemplary teaching practices in an After-School Pedagogical Laboratory (L-TAPL), a program for elementary students that aims to improve the achievement of urban students and the competence of their teachers. The L-TAPL enrichment program curriculum includes language arts, math,…

The teachers should avoid ineffective practices that promote disengagement in order to increase adolescents' comprehension skills. A schoolwide literacy plan and strong leadership can bring real changes in literacy teaching and learning.

The road to improvement has taken the staff of a high-poverty urban school from isolation to collaboration. The innovations that were developed based on the basis of the collective analysis of school wide requirements have helped the John Williams Elementary School No. 5 in Rochester, New York, to create pathways to excellence and become a…

News analysis and entertainment media is part of a media literacy that helps students access, analyze, evaluate and create messages using media in various forms. Media literacy is a key asset in a democracy as well as a bridge to reading comprehension, as skillful media use and script-reading activities can support the English acquisition skills,…

Discusses six traditional instructional assumptions and practices that impede the creation of a caring classroom environment: blaming the students, keeping control of the classroom, missing the systemic factors, ignoring problems with the curriculum, settling for self-discipline, and manipulating with "positive reinforcement." (Contains 12…

Argues that poor and minority students' access to quality teachers can significantly narrow the achievement gap. Describes research showing the effects of quality teaching on academic achievement and teacher-quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Suggests several ways to improve teacher quality such as salary increases, subsidized…

This brief describes how administrators and policymakers can use the concepts of youth development and youth leadership in developing and administering programs that serve all youth and activities specifically geared toward youth with disabilities. The brief is based on a longer paper, Youth Development and Youth Leadership, A Background Paper,…

This brief focuses on how youth-serving organizations can become more effective as intermediary linkages between youth and employers by adopting certain practices. This brief offers basic employer-friendly strategies that will assist intermediaries and their representatives in making productive connections with employer customers that can result…

This case is developed for use in classes in which key ideas related to democracy, accountability, inclusion, finances, and social justice are introduced. It could be useful in a course on school reform or on democratic leadership. Although the case is fictional, it is a composite in which all events and information provided are "real." The intent…

This document provides an overview and analysis of how a series of national conferences held in the fall of 2003 framed conversations around high schools and high-school-age youth This analysis explores the underlying assumptions of these frameworks and the extent to which they coalesced or diverged. The report also examines the content of the…

A conversation with James Stigler, professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, about how to improve professional development for teachers. (PKP)

A conversation with Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University, about two contradictory trends in education: customization and standardization and their effect on the public schools' responsibilities to provide both individual and social benefits. (PKP)

Interview with neuropsychologist Brain Butterworth about what research has revealed about how the brain learns abstract concepts such as mathematics and the implications of these findings for teaching mathematics. (PKP)

Questions a national commission asks about matters that relate to the concerns of the child. (Author/MLF)

Describes a California high school English class's creation of various authentic learning activities to bring Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" to life. For any activity to be perceived as genuine, students must be able to apply what they are learning to their lives; there must be a goal worthy of students' and teachers' commitment and risk. (MLH)