The 2004-05 school year didn't start off well for the Sanger Unified School District. The district, located east of Fresno, had entered its first year of "program improvement"--a gentler way of saying that Sanger was among the 98 lowest-performing districts in the state based on success criteria in the No Child Left Behind law. The…

In this article, the author describes how his district develops clearly focused professional learning communities (PLCs) and raises its student achievement rating from "one of the worst" to one of the best. Sanger Unified School District in California's Central Valley had been named one of the worst school districts in California. It…

In this article, the author discusses "Wiki-ality" and "truthiness"--notions that explain a lot about life in the 21st century. Both words were coined by Stephen Colbert, an American comedian and actor. Colbert coined the word "Wiki-ality" based on Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia which seems far more…

The paper trail leading to reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, scheduled for 2007, is already clogged and will keep getting more so. One needs to select sets of recommendations carefully to avoid being awash in conflicting or redundant ideas. In this article, the author presents a critique, that calls for a major shift in…

Looks at how effective state and federal sex equity mandates (Chapter 622 and Title IX) have been in reducing bias and sex segregation in Massachusetts schools, particularly in the areas of physical education, athletics, home economics, and industrial arts. (Condensed from "The Massachusetts Teacher," April 1981, p6-12.) (Editor/SJL)