Many reasons can be offered for teaching about Australia. The field of Australian studies offers many opportunities for U.S. teachers and students to critically analyze aspects of their own culture, for there are many experiences in the history of Australia that parallel the U.S. experience. Australia and the United States have strong ongoing…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in geography is a periodic survey of geographic knowledge and skill of students at grades 4, 8, and 12. The first NAEP in geography was conducted in 1994 and the second in 2001. Like the 1994 assessment, the 2001 assessment probed students' ability to recall, understand, analyze, and interpret…

This digest compares the efforts of the United States and of other member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to finance center- and facility-based preschool. In many OECD countries, public preschool is more widely available than in the United States. For example, in France, 100%, and in Italy,…

The use of contextualized learning environments with learners who are at risk of school failure arises from the recognition that students who are introduced to concepts and strategies out of a meaningful context will view them as irrelevant to daily life. Contexts created by teachers using videotape and random access videodisc technologies have…

This digest investigates seven of the most prevalent and damaging myths about literacy in the United States. In response to various claims about American elementary and secondary students' test score declines in reading achievement, the author interprets data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the International…

Various researchers, including Carl Jung, Charlotte Buhler, Erik Erikson, and Robert Havighurst, have formulated sequential models of adult development. More recent investigators, such as Daniel Levinson, Roger Gould, and Gail Sheehy have formulated age-related sequential models of adult development that view the various stages of adulthood in…

Examining testing practices in other countries can help formulate ideas and issues in establishing a national assessment system in the United States. Based on recent reports by the Office of Technology and Assessment and the National Endowment for the Humanities, this digest provides an overview of the national examinations in several European…

The impact of student aid policies on women is assessed. Patterns of enrollment and economic profiles differ for male and female students. Women, for example, far surpass men as adult, part-time, independent, and unclassified students, the categories most likely to present barriers to participating in most financial aid programs. Gender issues in…