Today's children manifest more serious behavior problems than those of the midseventies, resulting from changes in the economy, the racial and ethnic landscape, government policy, and the family. Immense structural changes are necessary in education, health care, government, and political leadership if families and children of the underclass are…

America 2000 presents an educational reform agenda that neglects the arts. Prevailing misconceptions of the arts are based on a massive misunderstanding of their role in human development and education. The arts contribute significantly by celebrating the value of multiple perspectives and nuances in problem solving, relating form to content, and…

Art plays an integral role in civilizing society and its members. Through the visual arts we can directly comment on the human condition and begin to comprehend the complexity of our species and our multicultural and mutlilayered society. This article discusses how the arts' civilizing power can inform the education of all children. (15…

Education in the arts has the power to be intrinsically valuable and to help fulfill nonaesthetic, utilitarian goals. Art education can improve cognition, promote social relations, stimulate personal development, and foster citizen productivity. An examination of dance education shows at least 19 ways to connect dance to academics and the world of…

At her principal's request, a sixth grade teacher/composer formed a high-quality chorus of fifth and sixth graders. The chorus was a great success despite lack of strong administrative support. Unfortunately, the chorus disbanded after the author's resignation, resulting from lack of leadership, interest, and attendance. Meanwhile, the central…

LEAP (Learning through an Expanded Arts Program), a nonprofit educational organization aimed at improving educational quality in New York City's five boroughs, has served over 400,000 students over the past 12 years. LEAP projects such as Promoting Success and fraction quilts provide hands-on experience with art and music that help students learn…

Educators need to expand their ideas concerning acceptable ways to express knowledge. By restricting students to traditional ways of expression and evaluation, teachers may be preventing them from fully exploring and displaying their knowledge. Students' artwork can provide teachers with an additional way to evaluate learners' understandings of…

Instead of espousing early intervention, schoolwide models, or general classroom aid, educators must develop more specialized programs treating the real problems of Chapter 1 students at different stages. Chapter 1 should not be used as general aid to replace local and state responsibility to improve schools, but should focus on helping…

This article describes Dorothy Fadiman's prize-winning film "Why Do These Kids Love School?" as a documentary with many powerful lessons to teach. Inspired by her own daughter's joyous experiences at school, Fadiman filmed classroom activities at a progressive Menlo Park (California) school and eight other schools across the country that emphasize…

Describes a college counselor's efforts to reason with a student singing a Guns and Roses' song vilifying African Americans and homosexuals. Many individuals lack the historical knowledge, concern, or empathy to appreciate the destructive power of such lyrics. First Amendment rights are threatened by the academic community's silent assent to…

Oakland, California, has launched a protracted campaign against the purchase of a state-approved K-12 social studies textbook series published by Houghton Mifflin. Numerous organizations, parents, and teachers voted against adopting these texts, which portray U.S. society as an immigrant culture and shortchange African-American, Latino, and Asian…

Good spelling is a function of visual memory, not of thinking. Although spelling is found in most standardized achievement test batteries, it does not belong there. Poor spelling often causes teachers, parents, and students themselves to lower their expectations about ability to perform in other more important areas, such as vocabulary…

The Washington-based America 2000 system may be as close to a genuine national network as education in the 1990s will get. Riddled with inconsistencies, the network is becoming a nationwide "meeting-place" for reformers supporting the general concept of educational reform without the financial obligations. America 2000 is a top-down reform…

Whether organized around subject matter, teaching methods, school improvement, or restructuring efforts, successful networks share common features, such as focus, variety, and opportunities for discourse and leadership. Networks can also present nagging problems concerned with quality, application, stability, overextension, ownership, expanding…

Computers dedicated to supporting beginning teachers are like first aid kits. Both are inexpensive, simple to use, and intended to address minor problems and prevent the development of more serious complications. Both rely on self-analysis and are nonevaluative. Electronic networks offer the assurance of easily accessible, nonjudgmental resources…