Although many cite the No Child Left Behind Act ([NCLB], 2002) as the first result of public outcry for accountability in American education, evidence of this change can be traced back more than three decades, to the Reagan administration and "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983). This…

There are good reasons to press President Obama and his education advisors right now to both rethink the direction of educational reform as well as to reignite the national conversation regarding school change. A second-term president faces a moment where it's natural to analyze past practices and decide to either "stay the course or to…

A primary goal of all teacher educators is to provide preservice teachers with meaningful professional development opportunities that will help them succeed in making the transition into their own classrooms. Through these experiences, individuals develop the requisite knowledge and skills to become effective classroom leaders capable of…

The primary goal of performance pay for the past decade has been higher test scores, and the most prominent strategy has been to increase teacher performance through financial incentives. If teachers are rewarded for success, according to this logic, they will try harder. If they try harder, more children will achieve higher test scores. The…

In this paper, the author describes a partnership between the preservice elementary education students and preservice art education majors at a local university in Georgia. The goal of this partnership was to implement an interdisciplinary curriculum in the general classrooms of nearby Boulevard Elementary School. The educational objectives of the…

The current educational landscape makes it imperative that a vision statement become more than a fine-sounding statement that is laminated, hung on the wall, and quickly forgotten. If educators do not have a clear image of the future they wish to create, then someone will be ready to create it for them. But with a clear vision of the future, a…

A school's curriculum can appear unrelated, fragmented, or somewhat disjointed if not done with an end in mind. This fragmentation or disjointedness often affects students and their views of the experiences being given them in school. Various curriculum-integration techniques, however, can be used to help make the big picture more understandable…

The goals of education are commonly and easily agreed upon. The author points out that steps can and should be taken to determine how well school goals are, in fact, achieved. (Editor)

The problems of student personnel workers are often compounded by inadequate planning, uncertain outcomes, and lack of accountability. The authors propose that management by objectives may provide a reasonable solution. (Editor)

Many educators, and others, wonder if the schools can or should bring about change in our social order. Or should the schools follow the lead of politicians, economists, advertisers...? Discusses the issues from an optimist's viewpoint. (Editor/RK)

Despite recent criticism, the personal growth model of English studies that became synonymous with the Dartmouth Conference of 1966 is still considered preeminently viable by many educators. That is, more important than any other single function, language serves the most profound and intimate of human purposes--personal development. (Author)

The author discusses the desirability of a problem-solving approach to teaching, from preschool through the graduate level, as the best way to have students learn to think for themselves and to arrive at an opinion on the basis of the best available evidence. (KC)

In an authoritarian state, visitors are as controlled as are the local inhabitants. This report by an educator, an elementary teacher from Urbana, Illinois, offers some critical comments on Cuban education. (Editor/RK)

The authors argue that our schools fail to respond to the uniqueness of the human brain, its differential characteristics and its serious under-utilization. (Editor)