The "Back to Basics" movement is compared with the humanistic or affective approach to education. A return to basics would set the stage for an active teacher, shaping a passive student. Affective education, in contrast, considers helping a student learn to be a person as more central and more basic than the acquisition of skills and habits. If…

A 1978 Maine survey revealed, among other findings, that teachers and administrators want to achieve similar goals and want students to acquire more than mere knowledge or skills. (JM)

The adult world expects more of its youth than cognitive proficiency, and merely to use pious rhetoric to advocate return to basics does not solve the existing educational problems. (DS)

In an effort to expand research on effective and ineffective schools into the area of student attitudes, this study examined the cognitive, as well as the noncognitive scores for two groups of Pennsylvania schools that had been identified as effective or ineffective. Cognitive and noncognitive data were available for all 500 school districts for…

Discusses problems which arise when a discipline such as music uses more than one learning domain. Points out the difficulty in developing music skills while trying to achieve cognitive goals such as those outlined in Bloom's taxonomy. Examines whether such a taxonomy can help in sequencing learning in the music classroom. Provides suggestions for…

Issues related to basic skills education are discussed, beginning with a review of recent trends in American education. The 1960's are characterized as a decade of innovation, while the 1970's are described in terms of interest in accountability and cost effectiveness. Several reasons for current concerns about basic skills are suggested: parents'…

This report represents Phase Three of the "Continuing Plan for Education in Mississippi," which sought to develop a catalog of the precise reading competencies that students in Mississippi's public elementary and secondary schools would be expected to achieve by the time they reached particular grade levels. Chapter One is an introduction to the…

Competency needs are identified by the Tennessee Higher Education Committee: (1) writing, reading, speaking, and calculating for practical purposes; (2) basic understanding of history, science, economics, literature, etc; and (3) logical thinking, moral sensibility, and personal awareness. (Author/LBH)

This report presents findings of an evaluation of Project Concern, a basic skills and career development program initially undertaken to foster school desegregation by busing inner city pupils to suburban schools in the Hartford, Connecticut, metropolitan area. The report describes the outcomes of project graduates, dropouts, and nonparticipants…

Explains declining academic standards as at least partially the result of two decades of innovative teaching. Describes the predicament of high school graduates who cannot read. Explains the hazards of affective, innovative teaching, and the anticipated benefits of returning to traditional education mixed with limited and proven innovative…

This report presents an evaluation of a Title I preschool program which served 403 children during the 1973-74 school year, and was designed to prepare disadvantaged 4-year-olds for entry into kindergarten. In terms of instructional approach, the program closely followed Piagetian theory and included preservice and inservice teacher training. The…

Cognitive, affective, and social effects of teacher involvement with students were investigated for two successive years at two grade levels (grades 4 and 5 in the first year; grades 5 and 6 in the second) and three income levels (low, medium, high). The final sample consisted of 910 students in Year 1 and 816 students in Year 2 obtained from 14…

This guide, prepared by the K-12 Foreign Language Committee in the School District of Philadelphia, formulates a series of behavioral objectives in the basic skills of second language learning. They include listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as cultural education. The study specifies desired student learning behavior, describes the…

The Diagnostic Targeted Assistance (DTA) process was developed to document the impact of the home intervention aspect of the Home School Partnership Model (HSPM), one of the models for Project Follow Through. HSPM encourages parental involvement in the learning process, in order to foster positive attitudes in parents, educators, and students…

This guide begins with a series of questions and answers that introduce Pennsylvania's Educational Quality Assessment (EQA) Inventory as a 188- to 190-item multiple-choice test for grades 5, 8, and 11. Items are selected from a 400-item bank using matrix sampling procedures. Test results are analyzed at the school level; no individual student…