A critical problem in Japanese high school education is lack of fit between uniform curriculum and students' heterogeneous interests and abilities. This article explores policy initiatives to restructure and diversify high school education. Innovative high schools with "comprehensive" programs are emerging at a time when U.S. schools are promoting…

Drawing on interviews with Japanese company managers and workers, describes the basis for the education-work relationship in Japan and the policy implications for employers' role in work-force development. In Japan, work-force development emphasizes employers' active role in promoting internal skill development through extensive within-company…

Private/public school choice has existed in the Netherlands since 1900. The national government subjects public, Protestant, and Catholic school sectors to equal examination, salary, and capital investment standards. Factors influencing the existence of religious schools in an increasingly irreligious society include community church values;…

The formation and implementation of U.S. moral/political educational policy is highly problematic, due to certain long-held beliefs and embedded understandings that affect the policy-making process. China's situation has been less problematic. This discussion explores three areas of contrast between the societies involving morality/religion,…

Examines key aspects of multicultural education and early African American scholarship to broaden, deepen, and refine our understanding of their common roots. Early African American scholars exercised intellectual leadership by challenging the metanarrative, encouraging perspective-taking, and providing an intellectual foundation for questioning…

Creates a scenario illustrating how schools might be 10 years from now if present reforms were deepened and accelerated. Projections stress the importance of creating a vision, developing guiding principles for educating all students, and transforming learning, teaching, school organization, governance, teacher unions, and the community to achieve…

Explores Chicanos' educational conditions and related outcomes from elementary school through college. Examines the theoretical models used to explain Chicanos' low achievement and educational attainment. Investigates the Effective Schools and Accelerated Schools intervention models and adapts them for use with Chicano students. This research…

The Eight-Year Study was a landmark attempt to design, implement, and evaluate democratic secondary schools. Reexamining this 1930s initiative allows us to consider how democratic priorities can transform educational practice, evaluation, and policy analysis. The norms, values, and technologies that currently guide mainstream analysis are poorly…

Examines a major research university's six-year effort to implement a program of cooperative research and extension in education that involved professional intermediaries, key school partnerships, and cooperative research and development projects. Proposes revisions to the cooperative extension model that should increase its capacity for…

Decentralization is usually accompanied by central state organizations' renewed efforts to control schools through managerialist policies and accountability processes. In New Zealand, such mechanisms have been adapted from "agency theory." This article examines the central tenets of agency theory, the New Zealand approach, and implications for…

Ralph W. Taylor's scholarly contributions to the evaluation and curriculum development fields prior to 1950 were central to educational discourse for subsequent decades. Taylor's genius was present in development of the National Academy of Education, the National Institute of Education, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Center…

Discusses the professional development school (PDS), focusing on the vision, change process, and development of organizational structures necessary to support school-university faculty collaboration. Argues that developing the PDS requires a mutual accommodation between school and university cultures. Describes various collaboration approaches and…

Examines the preservice teacher education role of professional development schools in the context of school-university partnerships. The necessary joining of K-12 and university cultures raises numerous problems, including dealing with cultural clash and schools of education, sustaining leadership and commitment, providing adequate resources,…

Discusses the cultural transformation process in redesigning a teacher preparation program involving an urban professional development center at the University of Connecticut. Suggests that school-university partnerships can enhance the education of individual students, provide numerous professional development activities, and foster research…

Attempts to implement the professional development school (PDS) are frustrated by a lack of consensus about these schools' defining characteristics. This article discusses some common criteria, emphasizes that the professional development school is not a laboratory or demonstration school, and compares the PDS to other forms of academic inquiry.…