Commissioned by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), this monograph presents the highlights of the history of organized efforts to improve education for journalism in the United States and to stimulate studies in the field of mass communication. Following brief biographies of the AEJMC founding fathers,…

This "Research Roundup" focuses on how schools can benefit when educational leaders use data to challenge their intuition and assumptions in their decision-making. In "Building an Automated Student Record System: A Step-by-Step Guide for Local and State Education Agencies," Barbara S. Clements provides administrators with a quick but comprehensive…

Unless school boards link member training and school improvement plans to performance evaluations for themselves and their schools, the exercise might not be worth the time and effort. Board evaluation should focus on three general areas: board dynamics, policy process, and educational quality. Three evaluation approaches should be considered:…

Centennial High School in Gresham, Oregon, was one of three pilot schools selected in 1983 to use a research-based school improvement process developed by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. In the process, the local school establishes a leadership team to manage school improvement, collects data on student performance, uses the data to…

Two distinct school improvement efforts have been undertaken simultaneously in Washington State's North Kitsap School District. One effort focuses on achieving articulation of the curriculum throughout the district's four elementary schools, middle school, and high school. A needs assessment survey revealed that even within individual schools…

This supplement summarizes the National Commission on Excellence in Education's final report "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" and offers guidelines for citizens interested in forming their own commission on excellence. Resource organizations and publications for local commissions are listed. Theses and recommendations of…

This document is a summary of a doctoral dissertation that analyzed 65 randomly selected negotiated contracts from school districts from all geographical regions of the country. The main target of the analysis was the determination of provisions that would be used to improve the educational program. All items that could be interpreted as directly…

This document consists of the two 2002 issues of the newsletter of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education (ERIC/EECE). Each issue contains a feature article and one or more short articles on topics related to early childhood education, calls for papers, announcements about Internet resources, news items about and list…

According to a national survey of 1,200 adults conducted between November 1984 and January 1985, Americans are solidly in favor of raising standards for graduation from junior and senior high schools, even if the changes result in the failure of their own children to graduate. The respondents were not willing to support these reforms if they were…

Education reformers are urging that all students meet new and more challenging expectations for learning. A crucial question is whether the education system, including the people who comprise it, have the ability to meet these new demands. This report argues that discussions of capacity should be broadened to include such factors as the…

Making schools more productive is an overriding concern among education stakeholders. Strategies for making schools more productive are offered in this report. The articles discuss ways in which schools can boost student achievement, improve professional community among staff, and spark creative use of resources when money is scarce. The opening…

Like school-based management, school-site councils offer some attractive reform possibilities, including broadly based, democratic decision-making; enhanced sensitivity to specific school climates; and widely shared responsibility. Site councils can be ineffective, even harmful, when lacking sufficient support, expertise, and time to succeed. This…

Over the past 5 years, McKnight Middle School in Renton, Washington, has instituted a new discipline policy, integrated a study skills program throughout the curriculum, upgraded the curriculum, created several reward and recognition policies for both students and teachers, and increased parent and district involvement. The discipline policy…

Proposing that Socratic seminars can lead to true educational reform, this article examines the use of these seminars to enlarge elementary and secondary students' understanding of ideas and to encourage instruction that is not restricted by established syllabi, courses, or examinations. Socratic discussion is lacking in most classrooms but should…

Numerous methods for school reform have been promoted in the United States. Some lessons about school restructuring, reform, and improvement are offered in this report. The text examines four current educational reforms: Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools Project, Theodore R. Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools, James Comer's School Development…