Considers two lost court suits: in one, a basketball referee was sued for a "bad" call that led to a loss by the team promoted on the litigant's merchandise; in the other, a university was sued for permitting graduating students to throw their mortarboards, one of which injured the litigant. (PGD)

Once a month, fifth-grade students in an Indianapolis, Indiana, classroom can use tickets earned through good behavior and academic achievement to purchase donated items and baked goods. Students are in charge of organizing the activity, keeping track of student "earnings," and managing a student "bank." (PGD)

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…

The San Francisco Renaissance is a job training program for unemployed innercity youths. The illiteracy rates of youths applying to the program are high so a literacy class was developed to raise the students' reading and math skills to the eighth- and ninth-grade levels required by the technical job market for which they are being trained. (MD)

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)

Outlines the history of private education and the development of secular education in American public schools. Changes in growth in the private school sector seem to occur in response to public school treatment of religious values. (MD)

Describes the learning community model that involves teachers in an ongoing process of developing and refining curriculum. Through the sharing of information teachers improve their classroom practices and are more accountable for what they teach. (MD)

Outlines the Madison Workshop Program for staff development, operated by the local school system in cooperation with a local college. This unique collaboration funds nationally known educators to present workshops for local teachers. (MD)

Describes the Southwest Texas Program for Improving Basic Skills Instruction in the Secondary Schools. It promotes a thoughtful, inquiry-oriented dialog between a university and six participating schools that encourages teachers to become more effective decision-makers. (MD)

The pursuit of knowledge should include collegial relationships between faculty and students that allow collaboration in the process of inquiry. A graduate student laments how little of this happens in graduate school. (MD)

A recent Supreme Court decision on a First Amendment case involving a teacher in Texas illustrates how teachers' and other public employees' rights to freedom of speech face serious erosion. The problem is deciding whether grievances fall into the protected area of "public concern" or the unprotected area of a "purely private matter." (MD)