Systemic (top-down) educational reforms will remain limited unless they improve every teacher's methods and materials. Comprehensive or whole-school reform "scales up" effective schools until many more schools meet state and national standards. The federally funded Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program provides a supportive…

Currently, only one-third of U.S. students read at acceptably high levels. Designed for inclusive programs, Reading Styles recognizes that everyone, not just "handicapped" students, has varying strengths and weaknesses. The program identifies youngsters' individual strengths; matches reading methods, materials, and strategies to these…

A special program creating a miniature community inside the school provides students with real-life curriculum. (GB)

The Thomas J. Pappas Regional Education Center in Phoenix, Arizona, is a magnet school for homeless students from unorganized territories, military installations, Indian reservations, and national forest lands. This "accommodation" school, supported by federal grants, in-kind business donations, and committed volunteer mentors from the…

The Ambassador Program, a partnership between Ferron Elementary School and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, pairs university students with at-risk elementary students once a week to serve as role models. (TE)

Implementing recommendations derived from research and literature on school effectiveness, 20 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) schools have set and enforced standards that reflect their belief in their students' ability to achieve. (Author/JM)

A veteran English-as-a-Second-Language teacher recently discovered the effectiveness of using videos and TV together with a diverse student population that speaks 22 languages. Video segments linked to tasks, close-captioned instructional TV programs, and interactive TV and video helped students with language acquisition skills. The idea was to…

Under an Israeli Communities of Thinking model, teaching and learning are organized into three stages: the fertile question, research, and performance. A questioning pedagogy recreates the fertile question, undermines students' assumptions, celebrates questions, imparts knowledge questioningly, coaches research questions, and enables open…

A 1996 study attributed adolescent remedial readers' low comprehension to poor motivation, lack of experience, and egocentricity. Secondary teachers can help by connecting reading assignments to real-world learning experiences, providing self-directed activities, and inviting collaborative learning and varied self-expression. A San Diego program…

Students and teachers in the Virtual Classroom Program at an Ottawa, Ontario, high school connect in real time with peers and experts from around the world. Students collaboratively select interdisciplinary topics, conduct research using online databases and experts, and create oral and multimedia presentations. (MLH)