Reviews of 30 of the year's "big books in education" include in-depth attention to such "musts" as Marie Winn's "Children Without Childhood," John Marlowe's "School-Age Child Care," Thomas Rohlen's "Japan's High Schools," and Jerome Cramer's "The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980." (JBM)

Educational trends demand that school boards give students opportunities to participate in some areas of educational decisionmaking. (RA)

Reviews 40 books that merit the close attention of school policymakers and administrators. A list of 10 "must-read" books is included. (IRT)

Education improves when money is scarce because innovations and marginal programs are cut and the schools return to teaching the fundamental skills. (IRT)

Presents reviews of the 35 books that school board members should read this year. (IRT)

Discusses what education might be like in the year 2002. (JF)

Summarizes important education news in six sections, highlighting "main events" (from politics to privatization); (unfavorable) international comparisons of mathematics and science proficiency, reading literacy, and computer usage; common measures documenting kids' rising distress levels; school leaders' demographics and prime worries; rising…

A board member in an Iowa district explains the importance of presenting 4-minute summaries of educational news and trends at board meetings. In choosing items for presentation, she considers relevance, context, perspective, terminology, awareness, and national political developments. (MLH)

Handheld computers provide students tremendous computing and learning power at about a 10th the cost of a regular computer. Describes the evolution of handhelds; provides some examples of their uses; and cites research indicating they are effective classroom tools that can improve efficiency and instruction. A sidebar lists handheld resources.…

A centennial supplement marking the hundredth anniversary of The American School Board Journal contains articles that relate the history of the magazine decade by decade, often quoting from the magazine's pages. (MLF)

At the national level, factors that may discourage teacher strikes include the availability of revenues and the greater "sophistication" of negotiators. Highlights legislation proposed in Pennsylvania that sets a timetable for negotiations and puts restrictions on when teachers can call a strike. (MLF)

Recent reports criticize today's glitzy, coffee-table textbooks as shallow, dumbed-down products that waste taxpayers' money and students' learning potential. Districts should encourage more textbook research, clarify expectations, have someone read texts under consideration, refuse to purchase inferior textbooks, and watch for online…

An overview of the state of education. Through text and graphs, describes enrollment trends; spending on school construction, maintenance, and operations; changes in ACT and SAT scores; public opinion of educational vouchers and charter schools; and the growth of educational technology. (Contains eight graphs.) (WFA)

This article, part of the magazine's annual book review issue, provides brief sketches of seven recently published books that focus on racial issues. (MLF)

The findings from part 1 of the seventh annual American School Board Journal survey of school board members are reported. Board members listed their 14 most pressing concerns, with lack of financial support foremost; other concerns are listed by region, in order of the percentage who expressed each concern. (TE)