Background/Context: Much progress has been made toward a greater understanding of student engagement and its role in promoting a host of desirable outcomes, including academic outcomes such as higher achievement and reduced dropout, as well as various well-being and life outcomes. Nonetheless, disengagement in our schools is widespread. This may…

This article reflects upon changes in U.S. education since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The authors reject both the naively hopeful and the bitterly cynical interpretations of the efficacy of Brown in favor of a more moderate assessment: Brown has had many positive effects, they…

In this essay, I take stock of the developments shaping distance learning and consider the implications for educational researchers and for the future of education. I proceed in four stages. First, I consider the constellation of forces leading to the development of distance education and the emerging shape of this part of the education sector.…

To explore the gendered construction of educational management, this article utilizes Joan Scott's (1986) analytic model, which distinguishes gender as sexual difference, and deconstructs two dominant metaphors to expose gendered assumptions in alternative images of leadership. The metaphors are gender-specific (leader as mother) and…

Examines the development of a separate professional identity for teachers of children with disabilities, highlighting Boston public schools from 1870-1930, tracing emergent professionalization and training among teachers in institutions for individuals with disabilities, discussing specialized training for teachers working in four special…

Grade inflation pervades U.S. schools at all levels, and it is particularly pronounced in the humanities fields and in departments, schools, and colleges of education (DSCEs). This problem presents a leadership opportunity for DSCEs to develop and implement a credible and meaningful grade distribution system to combat pervasive grade inflation.…

Based on interviews with state-level policy makers in six states, examines the policies of charter-school reform, arguing that the bipartisan support for these schools masks often-opposing viewpoints regarding the purpose of the reform. Identifies three salient and conflicting themes that emerge from the policy makers' explanations of their…

Illustrates the enormous range of citizens who entered curricular disputes, the diverse strategies they employed, and the disparate results of their efforts, suggesting a new explanation for the decline of the traditional three-R's and the rise of a differentiated curriculum during the early 20th century. Highlights citizen effects on history,…

Describes the rise of the visiting teacher movement from 1906 to 1940, examining the sources of early visiting teacher work, discussing the origins of visiting teachers' work, noting medical and psychiatric discourses surrounding visiting teachers' work, describing the influence on preservice teacher-education programs, and considering the lessons…

Addresses the development, content, and potential for implementation of nationally developed science education standards, including their adoption and effects at the state level, comparatively analyzing three sets of publications that provide national standards for science education. The role of assessment in setting standards is discussed.…

Using data from a one-year field study of elementary and secondary social studies classes, the paper examines images of America actually being conveyed in elementary and secondary school classrooms, considering how schools are serving the purposes of Americanization and assimilation while the traditional study of America is being renegotiated and…

Examines the rise and fall of the open education movement of the 1960s and 1970s, considering the lessons that current school reformers might take from it. The paper notes that contemporary educational research indicates children can and should be taught in the ways they learn best, and it is time to reconsider the benefits of open education. (SM)

Teachers have come to be viewed as agents of change in the educational reform movement of the late 1980s. The term "teacher's voice" is introduced to describe both the right to have a say in policy and the content of what is taught. The conceptual roots of the term are discussed. (JL)

New optical information storage technologies such as the interactive video disc make possible change in how students will learn in classrooms of the future. Similar historical developments whose influences were wide ranging are discussed. Ongoing studies of interactive video applications at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are described. (JL)

The author reviews the multifaceted policy, curricular, and economic questions relating to the foreign student issue. (MT)