Recounts conclusions from interviews with disabled and nondisabled students concerning music preferences, experiences, and skills. Reports similar responses from the two groups, suggesting that the labels "disabled" and "handicapped" are unimportant for classroom instruction and routines. Concludes that dancing was the favorite music activity…

Reviews research on the association between school size and educational outcomes and considers policy implications of that research. Suggests a shift of value from large size to small size. Describes current state finance formulas, with an emphasis on sparsity and geographical isolation factors. Identifies policy considerations relative to the use…

Explores the issue of school choice as it pertains to town tuitioning in Maine. Includes the historical development of town tuitioning and current patterns by region and school type. Argues that town tuitioning provides substantial numbers of rural high school students and their parents with opportunities to choose high schools. (KS)

Describes an inservice teacher training program for educators in early childhood special education in rural South Carolina using telecommunications, telementoring, and teletraining. The program evaluation shows significant improvements in participants' self-reported competency in using computers, understanding research journals, and using research…

Describes inequitable funding of education in New Hampshire which is based on regressive property taxes and lottery revenues. Despite a politically conservative state legislature opposed to new taxes, a survey of over 500 citizens indicates support for equalized funding efforts through the raising of broad-based state income or sales taxes. (KS)

Administered an open-ended survey to 187 rural and urban tenth grade students in Minnesota. Students were asked to describe their community, state, nation, and world. Comparison of rural and urban students' responses revealed both similarities and differences. Discusses implication for rural education and rural education research. (Author/KS)

Assesses the effects of human capital and social capital (social interaction that facilitates productive activity) on the probability of a student dropping out of high school using the High School and Beyond data set. The effects of human and social capital in combination significantly reduced the odds of dropout. (KS)

Studied the stability of special education services in rural areas by examining the records of 654 students in 10 school districts over a 3-year period. More than one of five students were terminated and about one in six were reclassified. Speech-language-impaired students were most likely to change, whereas severely mentally impaired were least…

Examined the effects of activity period duration on preschoolers' play with playdough and blocks. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests showed significantly more constructive and dramatic play, and less functional play, at the end of the play period. Differences between the quality of play in block and playdough centers were found. (Author/BB)

Confirms the hypothesis that elementary school science students recall science concepts for which they generate their own examples and definitions better than science concepts for which they do not generate their own examples and definitions. (BB)

Studied the possibility that children's decisions regarding naughtiness and types of punishment differ according to age and sex. Subjects were interviewed after hearing two stories from Piaget's study of children's moral reasoning. Significant age variability was found. Findings imply that children did not make the connection between the act and…

Assesses the ability of elementary school teachers to identify at-risk students using three prominent indicators. Summarizes the reasons teachers give for identifying a student as at risk. Concludes that teachers are moderately accurate estimators of students' likelihood of being academically at risk. (Author/BB)

Reviews the research comparing the social and behavioral characteristics of only children and children with siblings in China. Results are mixed, and many of the studies are seen as having methodological flaws. (BB)

Investigated the effects of three types of block, housekeeping, and changing thematic play centers on young children's language production. Although results indicated that language production and vocabulary varied according to the type of center, children produced more oral language and used more diverse vocabulary in the block center. (Author/BB)

In an attempt to bridge the perceived distinction between internalized conceptions of mathematics and their external representations, this discussion treats mathematics both as an individual, constructive activity and as a communal, social practice. It is argued that this approach might transcend the tripartite scheme of teacher, student, and…