A comparison of a modern teacher certification exam with one administered more than a century ago suggests that teachers in 1876 were required to exercise a greater range of mathematical skills, concepts, and principles. (Author)

Reform efforts that manipulate time, content, materials, and teacher variables have the best chance of success in a period of fiscal steady state. (Author)

Rather than being merely a component of the generalized distrust of authority, decline in public satisfaction with the schools may be one of the leading contributors to sustaining or even exacerbating the crisis of confidence in the state. (Author/JM)

The author recommends that teachers receive a strong liberal education followed by a two-year postbaccalaureate training program. In addition, the schools must be reorganized to include hierarchically structured teams of teachers headed by those with even further professional training and higher pay. (Author/JM)

The author expresses his agreement with the recommendation that teacher education be upgraded--suggested in the preceding article by Gideonse in the same issue--but sets forth some additional problems to be overcome. (Author/JM)

Agrees with the recommendation in a preceding article by Gideonse in the same issue that teachers should complete a postbaccalaureate program, but disagrees with Gideonse's advocacy of hierarchically structured teaching teams and an academic rather than a field-based program. (Author/JM)

The author expresses agreement with a preceding article by Gideonse in the same issue but questions his assumption that there is a solid foundation of knowledge on which to base pedagogical training and suggests that reductions in force currently make inservice education more worthy of focus than preservice education. (Author/JM)

Data indicate that teaching attracts and retains a disproportionately high percentage of those with low measured academic ability and fails to attract and retain those with high ability. If policy makers wish to change this situation, they must be prepared to pay the price. (Author)

The U.S. is facing a serious shortage of math and science teachers. Worse news is that we are not now training enough new teachers to remedy the problem. Solutions may include differential pay, inservice staff development, school-industry cooperation, improved work environments, and computer-assisted instruction. (Author/JM)

Data suggest that self-selection is weeding out the poorer students in the teacher education program at Western Washington University. The grade point average of freshmen, although declining for the university as a whole, is rising in teacher education. (Author/JM)

The author looks again at the fictional teacher Miss Dove and explains why he considers her a true model for educational and moral excellence. (Author/JM)

Reports the full results of the 1982 Gallup Poll of the public's attitude toward education. Topics covered include major problems confronting the schools, rating of the schools, federal funds, budget cutting, curriculum changes, special education, and federal control. (JM)

School District 126 in Cook County (Illinois) conducts its own opinion polls to stay in touch with its constituents--and then puts the results to use. (Author)

Conventional classroom controls are not working well for teachers today. The answer: low-profile controls, which focus student attention directly on lesson content without unnecessary distractions. (Author)

Periods of scarcity, such as the one we are now experiencing, make the need for less federal regulation more urgent. Indeed, the combination of scarcity and President Reagan's New Federalism are going to force deregulation on U.S. schools. (Author/JM)