Under North Carolina's ABC's accountability program, public schools are labeled "exemplary,""meets expectations,""adequate performance," or "low performance." Teachers are given $1,500 bonuses if their schools exceed expectations. A survey found that mandated tests increased student anxiety and negatively influenced instructional strategies and…

Policymakers are placing tremendous faith in assessment, a technology with many limitations. Assessment-driven improvement policy uses mandatory testing to leverage desired change, but it narrows the curriculum, punishes teachers for things beyond their control, expands bureaucracy, and does not work. Alternative strategies for school leaders are…

Presents content standards for performance-based accountability systems, which should not be driven by a single indicator. Systems must consider school context and individual student differences; monitor and support equitable learning opportunities, long-term professional development opportunities, and classroom assessments; and allow for…

Experience with the Child Development Project shows that poorly implemented community building may be detrimental to students. Caring is not synonymous with "easy"; teachers are pivotal in student-centered classrooms; schoolwide change is essential; school values must be examined; and assessment must be aligned with instruction. (Contains 10…

Modeling faculty meetings after the "rugtime" format used in primary classrooms has helped the faculty and principal at an Illinois elementary school regain their sense of smallness and concentrate on single-topic reflections and discussion. The emerging quality of conversation defines and extends the faculty community. (MLH)

A caring, effective style of classroom management has transformed a Chicago elementary school. The Responsive Classroom approach acknowledges children's need to feel pleasure and significance as members of a classroom community via morning meetings, rules and logical consequences, guided discovery, classroom organization, academic choice, and…

After spending one day weekly during fall 1998 observing how students with disabilities are served in an Edison school, a teacher educator concludes that Nancy Zollers and Arun Ramanathan did the Seven Hills Charter School a great injustice in their December 1998 "Kappan" article. (Contains 17 references.) (MLH)

John Bruer previously stated that "brain science has little to offer educational practice or policy" and urged attention to cognitive science. In conjunction with knowledge from other sources, neuroscience findings are yielding additional insights into the learning process. Educators should know about findings on enrichment, constructivism, and…

Equal opportunity is more attainable than universal scientific literacy. Society should instead invest in improved science education for the disadvantaged. Science is a difficult subject. Educators can arouse curiosity and awaken self-interest, but they cannot create lifelong learning by force-feeding a concentrated dose of science. (Contains 15…

With the 1996 funding concessions, financing of private schools in Australia has come full circle. Australians seem prepared to accept educational democracy and pluralism as a way to pass on distinctive forms of cultural capital. However, the 1996 legislation may encourage an exodus from the state school system. (Contains 16 references.) (MLH)

One cannot reflect on centuries of accumulated religious wisdom without experiencing a deepened sense of personal meaning and purpose--a phenomenon often marginalized in progressive education. Contemporary issues have religious dimensions. The four essays assembled in this special section consider religion's role in public education from different…

Nineteenth-century common schools offered no course about religion or its role in American society. Moral education up through the mid-20th century embodied a kind of generalized Christianity. If universalized versions of the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments prevail, educators should reconsider the merits of common-school philosophy. Contains…

Character educators can recognize religion's contribution to our culture while honoring the First Amendment. Schools can help students understand religion's role in our nation's beginnings, major social-reform movements, and individuals' motivation; construct special curricula; and encourage students to tap inner resources to address social issues…

Liberal theologians and some scientists subscribe to integrationist theories of science and religion. Late 20th-century developments in quantum mechanics, cosmology, chaos theory, and ecology have rendered nature more mysterious and open to religious interpretation than to deterministic approaches. Students should learn how science connects to…

In considering the suspension of three Des Moines students for wearing armbands to protest the Vietnamese War, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public school officials' prohibition of student expression violates the First Amendment. This article reviews this landmark case, employing interviews with the plaintiffs' and district's lead counsels.…