The Rural Teacher Residency (RTR) program prepares teachers to work in 'high need' rural schools in the northeastern United States, and specifically works to establish a counter-narrative to the commonly-held deficit lens applied to these schools and communities. Framed by theory and research on DisCrit and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), we…

Research indicates that a majority of honors students across the country are able to earn honors credit through the fulfillment of honors contracts. These learning contracts grant honors credit to students who perform additional work in non-honors-designated sections of other courses. Despite their popularity, little has been written on the design…

Teaching basic reading, writing, and critical thinking skills is immensely gratifying and vitally important work, requiring intelligence, optimism, and humanity. To be able to gain some sliver of understanding with regard to students' attitudes, behaviors, skills, and abilities; to recognize that there exists a multiplicity of possible…

This paper focuses on the use of alternative assessments at the state level with a focus on the Connecticut experience. Judging from the size of audiences attending sessions on alternative assessments at national conferences and the numbers of articles appearing on performance assessment in recent educational journals, it is obvious that there is…

In this article, the author discusses how Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) seeks and nurtures students with high academic talents in Baltimore. The mission of CTY, since its founding in 1979, has been to identify students with high academic abilities and to provide challenging and innovative programs that are appropriate…

The College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland is a learning community, based on the model of a residential college, that was designed to attract and retain academically talented undergraduates. Three experiential learning components developed by faculty for the curriculum are colloquia, service learning units, and discovery…

Describes how the College Board, under the auspices of the Equality Project, is collaborating with school and college educators to bring about school reform, with special attention given to the writing component of the curriculum. (HOD)

A proficiency test became the exit requirement for the noncredit, basic English course at the University of New Orleans because the program was not working well. There were inconsistencies in grading, and students who managed to pass the course later foundered in the credit courses. Obviously, the teachers needed to cooperate to raise the goals of…

Oneonta and the campus of the State University have been the principal home of the Saturday Seminar Program from its beginning in 1958. Oneonta is the center of a sparsely-settled rural region of New York and the area has many small schools with an average size, K-12, of about 400. Since smaller enrollments often limit the range of course…

Youngstown State University (Ohio) established a full-cost renewable scholarship for 40 students annually who maintain a 3.5 or higher grade point average. The program is described, including results of the first three years' recruitment, first-year academic requirements, cocurricular activities, community service component, scholarship renewal,…

The challenge with mixed-ability groups is satisfying both equity and excellence. A Colorado school district pursued differentiation by ensuring that the board, central office, and principals understood the need to provide informed leadership, differentiated teaching models, and training for transfer. Sidebars list resources and advice for…

The activities and accomplishments of the second year of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Performance Funding Project at Tennessee Technological University are reported. The purpose of the Project was to explore the feasibility of allocating some portion of state funds to colleges and universities based on a performance criterion with…

This report on secondary school dropouts consists of an analysis of the scope and nature of the dropout problem, a discussion of successful programs and activities for dropouts, a description of a pilot study involving Minnesota public secondary schools and Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) agencies, and presentation of…