Parents want to send their children to schools that are free not to teach everyone. Since schools are susceptible to societal disorders, pressures to provide school choices offering "safe havens" for learning will persist. Schools can do little to protect their learning environment from uncooperative students. A forced-exit process for unruly…

Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent for National Public Radio, grew up in two cultures, saw his parents' marriage dissolve, and watched his mother toil to keep family together and get her children educated. Sanchez spends working hours searching for stories illustrating that kind of travail. Focusing on issues of abandonment and neglect, he…

The most emotionally absent students often come alive after school. Any extracurricular activity (even football) seems better than high school. In football, teenagers are important contributors, are encouraged to excel, and become team players; repetition is honorable; the unexpected happens; practices run longer than 50 minutes; emotions and…

About half of regular secondary students make no consistent effort to learn. Intrinsic appeals are applicable to any lesson in any subject at any level. These include novelty, anticipation, security, challenge, completion (of logically connected project segments), application of learned skills, feedback, identification (via possession, belonging,…

According to 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress science results, there is no difference between private and public school performance by the time one reaches the 75th percentile of grade 12. Recent SAT scores for the top 20% of students indicate teachers are not inflating grades. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing…

A complex case involving a disgruntled ex-employee's invasion of a college president's e-mail system resulted in a decision granting two plaintiffs' motions for summary judgment. This was the first recorded education-related collision on the electronic superhighway. Every educational institution should have a policy and procedure regarding what…

Technology can be used to keep children safe from sexual predators and other externalized violence, via coded intercom messages, e-mail warnings to teachers, and closed-circuit television broadcasts. Unfortunately, many schools with portables lack these services or telephones. Distant physical education teachers are at some disadvantage. Day-care…

Simplistic and misleading statements seriously distort what the Third International Mathematics and Science Study actually says about American 12th-graders' performance. Physics and advanced mathematics scores are beyond redemption. However, if the math and science literacy were accurately calculated, factoring in appropriate variables, the United…

Although most public-school teachers have undergraduate degrees, only 68% to 76% possess at least a bachelor's degree in their area. Do advanced degrees enhance teacher productivity? A recent study of 8th- and 10th-graders' math and science achievement suggest that only advanced degrees specific to the subjects taught should be rewarded. (12…

Examines effects of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act from a caring, innovative elementary teacher's viewpoint. A court required KERA, the legislature created it, state officials regulate it, but teachers are directly responsible for working together to make reforms work. Unfortunately, the state has not provided enough direction to…

A Louisville elementary school has a brighter future, thanks to the Kentucky Education Reform Act. Kennedy School's reform efforts predated the 1990 state law, but teachers and administrators credit KERA with providing appropriate resources and a psychic push toward success. Although the school suffered a performance drop in 1996, it has made vast…

Designed to monitor school accountability, KIRIS (Kentucky Instructional Results Information System) offers a powerful lesson about how high-stakes accountability systems can distort and undermine original visions for effective curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices. Changes have been influenced by several interconnected elements:…

Reviews the current state of knowledge about various (adult-volunteer) tutoring programs' effects on student achievement. Except for the Howard Street Tutoring Program and the School Volunteer Development Project (two very small programs), the programs reviewed present no unbiased evidence of effectiveness. Comparison groups are needed to…

A national study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that school-based reform is no guarantee of improved learning opportunities. Schools with the most promising reform efforts set attainable reform goals with long timelines; focus explicitly on particular aspects of curriculum while targeting related professional development…

Distressed by media headlines trumpeting supposed "reading-and-writing wars," a reading education professor discusses his Delphi survey of 11 reading experts. Experts agreed that emphasizing only phonics instruction and drill-and-practice would make learning to read difficult. Reading would be facilitated by bringing together opportunities for…