Neoconservative advocates of private and religious school choice are trying to exploit the dissatisfactions of poor, predominantly minority parents to create a publicly funded private school system free of public control and oversight. This alternative system would inevitably reproduce and legally sanction the "separate but equal" doctrine on a…

In this poll, teachers rate their local public schools even higher than parents did, compared to the nation's schools. The biggest problem facing schools is lack of parental support. Discipline is the major reason teachers leave the profession; only 46% of teachers would recommend teaching as a career to their brightest student; 80% oppose…

Given that competition can motivate students to perform better on high-stakes tests, this article ponders what might be done to help students take the relatively low-stakes National Assessment of Educational Progress tests more seriously. So far, offering intrinsic and extrinsic rewards has yielded mixed or questionable results. (MLH)

The phrase "school/business relationship" is misleading, since such "partnerships" encompass everything from genuine altruism to cynical exploitation of the "youth market." Corporate infiltration could signal privatization of public education, despite conspicuous failures like Education Alternatives, Inc. Instead of bashing business, educators…

Educational reforms fail because they are usually based on certain myths about training, advocacy, theory, knowledge dissemination, complete restructuring, paradigm shifts, and small-scale studies. These misconceptions result in wasted resources for staff development and dissemination, few professional validation standards, repeat cycles of…

Directed to improve administrative leadership effectiveness, the Philadelphia School District's new regional superintendent determined that participant research and practitioner inquiry would encourage principals, teachers, and support staff to become a community engaged in thinking, learning, and working together to educate urban learners. Staff…

Universal school choice would strongly benefit all children, including the disadvantaged, by promoting candid and demanding relationships among teachers, parents, and students. So concludes the author's study of a privately funded voucher program, the Student-Sponsor Partnership Program in New York City. Individual sponsors pay tuition for…

Now 30 years old, the Head Start program has received continued bipartisan support in Congress. Competing proposals for early intervention, day-care, and child/parent centers are costly, ineffective band-aids. Expanding Head Start into a four- to six-year program starting at age three or four would be the most cost-effective use of federal…

Like the United States, Great Britain has had problems with school-to-work transitions. Britain's experience with the Youth Training Scheme shows that youth apprenticeship programs can be created almost immediately if the right incentives are offered. The challenge is meshing higher-level job skills and standards with employers' quest for…

Describes an apprenticeship program for high school juniors and seniors at the EHOVE Career Center in Milan, Ohio. Discusses the Federal Committee on Apprenticeships' suggested program components and the Office of Work-Based Learning's program development guidelines. School staff should consider area employment needs, define occupational targets,…

The notion that there is no template or model for American schools--just guiding principals and a deep respect for individual school culture--informs the work of the Coalition of Essential Schools and the Annenberg Institute founded by Ted Sizer. Today the Coalition is supporting clusters of small schools to help make school choice more…

For 22 years, at 166 sites around the world, over 1 million teachers have been teaching each other in nearly identical National Writing Project summer institutes. This article discusses the lessons learned about teacher leadership, the qualities of worthwhile staff development, writing instruction, and educational reform's bumpy landscape. (MLH)

Since 1988, the Jose Valdes Summer Math Institutes have helped some 4,800 (mostly minority) students get a running start on their high school careers. The program consists of four main elements: intensive math instruction for students, training for teachers, parent education, and a student support program. (MLH)

Using ingenuity and an IBM grant, an assistant professor of special education paired 40 teacher education students in her methods courses with middle-school writing partners from the teachers' classes for moderately handicapped students. Using electronic mail, the pairs communicated often on various topics. Friendships developed, along with…

Suggests several novels for educators' summer reading enjoyment, including classics by Robert Pirsig, Robertson Davies, John Steinbeck, Albert Camus, and Charles Dickens. Educators might also read Alex Kotlowitz's "There Are No Children Here" (Doubleday, 1991) and Sharon Quint's "Schooling Homeless Children" (Teachers College Press, 1994) to gain…