Instructional time for social studies in elementary classrooms has decreased since the passage of Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind, with content contracted to align with reading goals. Consequently, opportunities for preservice teachers to observe and teach social studies lessons have diminished. This qualitative multiple case study examines…

Professional development has been a focus of public education since World War II, yet, it was not until the passage of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act in 1994 that professional development became federally mandated. The infusion of educational technology at the start of Goals 2000 created a natural connection with professional development. In…

Maintains that, if national geography standards are effective, issues-based instructional materials are needed. Reports on a study of the use of 3 modules on environmental education by 480 secondary students in 18 schools. Finds that the students made significant cognitive and skill gains. (CFR)

In 1990, the National Education Goals were established by the President and the 50 state governors. Goal 1 states that by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn. This booklet is a condensed version of an earlier document intended to further amplify the dimensions of early learning and development used by the…

Reviews the national social studies standards developed and disseminated by the National Council for the Social Studies. Discusses 3 purposes and 10 operating assumptions of the standards. Responds to six questions that examine the standards within the classroom context. (CFR)

Describes year two of an ongoing Goals 2000 Preservice Technology Infusion Project that prepared higher education faculty, K-12 teachers, and preservice teachers to integrate technology in their instruction to facilitate a constructivist vision of technology integration. Results indicated that project activities facilitated increased proficiency…

Discusses the systemic reform of education and training based on a review of pertinent literature, including a conceptual framework; the GOALS 2000 legislation; models of learning, including constructivism, student empowerment, and andragogy; the potential of technology in systemic reform; equitable access; using the National Information…

The first of Goals 2000, "all children in America will start school ready to learn," has been problematic to measure because of the ambiguity of "all,""start,""ready," and "learn." A more measurable and appropriate statement would be "all primary schools will be able to provide developmentally…

Instead of perpetuating a macroeconomic labor-exchange model, educators must discover how to promote individual career planning for everyone. If each person has one lifelong career, we must help people get and keep jobs, while helping them plan future worklives and balance work roles and responsibilities with other life roles. (22 references) (MLH)

Continual additions of discrete educational programs are ineffective and deleterious to the educational system. The New American Schools Development Corporation and Goals 2000 are examples of systemic school-improvement initiatives. A new paradigm based on lifelong learning and individual and team growth is essential. A learning organization must…

What is striking about the Goals 2000 initiative is its virtual omission of the student, except as passive receptacle. To claim that students will learn more with heightened expectations is misleading. For content to take root, it must connect with students' internal "prepared structures" and become a "comfortable friend." In…

In educational reform, the nation appears to be pursuing two distinct and possibly incompatible strategies for change. One approach is based on the philosophy of "a Nation at Risk" and has resulted in a standards-driven educational agenda. Critics of this model advocate a bottom-up, more learner-centered approach. (SLD)

Although one national goal proposes that all Americans will have all knowledge necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise citizenship responsibility, others fail to explain how children incarcerated in standards-driven schools will make sense of the world. The microsociety school approach radically recontextualizes in-school learning by…

This report describes the progress that the 16 states in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region have made in meeting the first of the Goals for Education 2000: that all children will be ready for first grade. The report describes SREB states' efforts in: (1) increasing the percentage of at-risk children served by prekindergarten and…

Discusses the importance of research to the school-library media specialist. Topics include levels of knowledge that help with informed decision-making; ways to overcome the gap between research and practice, including writing for scholarly journals; the need for publishing research from practitioners; and development of a research agenda for the…