An education professor explains how she uses her own lesson plans for a course in middle-grade methods to demonstrate lesson planning for students. She uses an entrance table with handouts to illustrate time-saving classroom techniques. Seeing and experiencing generally beats telling. (MLH)

Reporting how many people scored at a certain level or how many people passed a cut score is not the same thing as reporting the scores themselves. The newest (indefensible) cliche, derived from international test-score comparisons, says American kids get dumber the longer they stay in school. (MLH)

To help teacher educators and others become better consumers of the teacher standards currently on the market, this article presents and analyzes some claims typically advanced for such standards. All proposals, whether research-based or representing professional consensus, must be respectfully received, reviewed, and discussed. (16 references)…

K-12 educators desiring to write for publication are encouraged to become familiar with rules and guidelines governing journal selection, acceptance rates, refereed status, research format, themed issues, turnaround time, reference style, invited revisions, communication with editors, electronic submissions, and charges to authors. (MLH)

"Kappan" editors recommend Michael Ignatieff's biography of Isaiah Berlin and insightful novels by Barbara Kingsolver, Pat Conroy, Wally Lamb, Edwidge Danticat, and Doris Lessing. Neil Postman's "The End of Education" (1995) advocates exploiting diversity to define standards. Ernest House's "Schools for Sale" (1998) explains why free-market…

A superintendent offers suggestions on what school districts should and should not do to increase the effectiveness of the schools during a time of reduced financing. (IRT)

The author's ten commandments are intended to provide teachers with significant general guidelines for use in the classroom. The areas covered include worship in the classroom, academic freedom, corporal punishment, slander and libel, and student safety. (IRT)

Outlines steps that must be taken for a school to implement a Walkabout experiential learning program in a community. (IRT)

Summarizes relevant statutes, court cases, and guidelines in an effort to provide interviewers with information to make them confident that they are not violating the rights of those being interviewed. (Author/IRT)

Outlines the trends in educational funding patterns needed to enact educational reform. Local property taxes, state revenues, and federal aid continue to provide the bulk of financing. Includes two tables. (MD)

Sustaining the educational reform movement will involve an estimated 20 percent increase in funding for education. Since such increases are unlikely, the evaluation of existing reform is urgent. Includes a list of seven levels of evaluation appropriate for state reform bills. (MD)

Cricticizes use of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores for college admission decisions. Outlines research showing redundancy of estimating potential success of entering college freshmen by the use of SAT scores, high school grades, and class rank. The statistical difference between estimates without SAT scores is minimal and does not support…

During the past fifty years movements to reform science education have used the same ideas for changing the context of science teaching. Policies need to be established for identifying the knowledge and skills necessary for reformulating the science curriculum. (MD)

The use of language is imperative to the intellectual development of children. Yet language minority children in all-English learning environments are forced to cope with shallow levels of learning while their future learning abilities are severely impaired. Bilingual education with native-language instruction is still the best option for children…

In recent years a growing number of state boards of education have established mechanisms to ensure dialog between public school policymakers and their nonpublic school counterparts. Outlines the methods used in four states: Florida, Louisiana, New York, and Ohio. (MD)