Career academies -- small learning communities within high schools that introduce students to specific industry sectors -- have become a popular way to expand career education. Yet certain institutional, economic, and social factors can inhibit their viability and scalability. Michael Lanford and Tattiya Maruco conducted a yearlong qualitative…

Every year, children enter PreK and kindergarten with varied early education experiences, and the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the problem. The need to respond to students' changing situations gives school districts and states an opportunity to reconsider how they are helping children and their families make the transition into kindergarten.…

One of the most important strategies for stopping school decline is recognizing its signs early on and promptly applying appropriate interventions. In this article, the author identifies 11 indicators of school decline that are associated with inadequate and inappropriate responses to the challenges of budget cuts, state and federal mandates, loss…

The Educational Research Service examines two meta-analyses of the class size/student achievement literature and concludes that they do not provide new evidence and that many of their conclusions are misleading or unjustified. (IRT)

An author of a meta-analysis of research on student achievement and class size answers criticism of his work. (IRT)

Praises United States Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's 1986 report as a readable, provocative document that restores central importance of elementary education. Disagrees with two improvement suggestions: elimination of teaching experience for principals and disregard of class size as an important variable. Sees improved instructional…

Suggests that, although collective negotiations have had little overall effect on teachers' salaries, they have had significant impact on other issues. (JF)

Research attempts to determine which variables in schools and classrooms promote effective learning experiences for children. (JF)

The education reform movement has fostered renewed interest in class size. Tennessee and Indiana experiments with smaller class size in primary grades have yielded improved student behavior and achievement scores. Tennessee's new Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio Project (STAR) is a longitudinal study furthering research on small class benefits.…

Outlines five areas--salaries, discipline, class size, student/teacher match, and professionalism--in which a "revolution" must take place if the educational reform movement is to be successful. (MD)

Alan Krueger's reanalyses of Eric Hanushek's school-productivity data show that Hanushek's "money doesn't matter" conclusions (influential in several states' education-finance hearings) have no factual basis. Hanushek excluded Tennessee's student/teacher ratio study (Project STAR). Also, class size is influencing students' success in…

This article provides a summary of the five major recommendations from the nation's highly accomplished teachers on the problems in staffing high-needs schools. Insights from these teachers reveal that salary incentives alone will not suffice to attract and retain good teachers for high-needs schools. Working conditions matter--most notably,…

Provides a brief overview of the current status of class-size reduction programs; summarizes research that has moved districts and states to seek class-size reduction; calls attention to the misapplication of the research in some contexts; discusses questions about smaller classes that remain unanswered; describes current research into the…

In light of a monumental class size research study completed in Tennessee, the U.S. Department of Education should reexamine the 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision and make legal accommodation for field testing new mechanisms affecting public policy equity decisions. Neighborhood schools should be reinstated in selected cities…

Describes four approaches to cost cutting that are offered to stimulate thinking in the direction of thrift: manage class size in the interests of both learning and economy; spend less for salaries; eliminate irrelevant goals, activities, and arrangements; and reconsider building needs and use. (Author/IRT)