Reviews research on classroom management, focusing on behavior modification, group management, teacher effects, management training, and planning. Five types of management skills and six principles for effective classroom organization identified by researchers are suggested for application by teachers. (PGD)

According to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, a teacher sentenced to probation as a first offender for residing in an apartment where marijuana was grown and used was improperly dismissed from her teaching position despite a state law protecting first offenders, but remained subject to dismissal for misconduct. (PGD)

Discusses the nature of political education in European schools, noting the influences of history, concepts of participatory learning, and the presence of pluralistic educational systems featuring both secular and religious schools. Countries discussed are Belgium, Italy, Greece, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland, and France. (PGD)

The Colorado School of Mines and the Cherry Creek (Colorado) School District cooperate in a program using engineering students as part-time instructional technicians in mathematics and science for the district. The program provides role models and highly trained support personnel for district students, and helps recruit teachers. (PGD)

The recent Carvo/Chall phonics debate (in the September and November "Kappan" issues) reduces children's early literacy development to a battle over methods. Reductionist disagreements and simplistic notions about complex behaviors must yield to a theoretically grounded, unified approach to literacy learning and instructional practices. Includes…

Recounts the case of Arthur, a neglected 9-year-old boy from an opulent home. Arthur's illiterate mother failed to provide him with books or a study area and refused to cooperate in a teacher-designed literacy program. Socioeconomic status can foster false assumptions about a child's home environment and its influence on literacy development.…

High quality teaching is hard to obtain without giving teachers greater independence. Meaningful school reform will be stalled until teachers emerge from their marginal positions in the research community and become full partners in the conception and conduct of educational inquiry. Includes 12 references. (MLH)

Good work by "outsiders" requires more than the right attitude concerning school complexities on the inside. Outside change agents can use seven strategies: acknowledging values, problem-setting, short-circuiting the system, one-legged conferencing, text-making, curriculum-making, and observing with feedback. Includes 24 references. (MLH)

Comparing teaching to medicine, this article argues that thoughtful practitioners intelligently evaluate educational research, reconcile that research with practical knowledge, and use artistry in considering the context. Researchers must, in turn, communicate to teachers their respect for the wisdom needed in their practice. (MLH)

There is probably no widespread educational practice as thoroughly discredited as retention in grade. If the research undercutting this practice is sound, the task is to uproot outdated misconceptions appealing to educators'"common sense" wisdom. An Arizona study's influence on the attitudes of community leaders, local teachers, and education…

Carrying out a useful research agenda requires faculty's willingness to relinquish class time for collecting data, to convene student teachers, to audiotape supervisory conferences, to require student teachers to videotape and evaluate their teaching, and to recruit experienced teachers for experiments. Unfortunately many faculty disdain…

Educational research, a branch of social science research, shares one powerful idea with the physical sciences: the primacy of scientific objectivity. In educational research, facts are routinely mistaken for scientific truth. Based on blind empiricism, educational research lacks scientific status and should be termed "educational arts." Includes…

Describes an unconventional research method, simultaneous replication. In the Phi Delta Kappa Study of Students at Risk, researchers in 87 different sites used the same definitions, procedures, and instruments (standardized achievement tests), data collection, and data analysis techniques. The simultaneous replication process seems well-adapted to…

Describes the evolution of a microsociety school in Lowell, Massachusetts. Guided by teachers, students use money, markets, and property building blocks to create a microeconomy producing numerous organizations and jobs. Lacking a prescribed ideological path (or a prepackaged curriculum), the students fashion their own social system and guiding…

Educational restructuring demands come from all quarters except school administrators resistant to change. Restructuring requires scrapping the screening type of school and sweeping out the frozen, ritualized, instructional methods that produce poor results. Brain-based education calls for numerous changes, including working from theory and…