Introduces articles addressing philosophical dilemmas raised by consideration of common school's role in a changing, multicultural society and examining implications of multiculturalism for schools in a democratic nation. Argues that improvements must be generated school by school and that prototypes for healthy schools must evolve over time. (CMG)

This paper on improvement of schools calls for a broad-based coalition of collaborating parties to articulate a clear moral educational mission and to promote for each community a healthy ecology of educational institutions directed toward this mission, redefinition of schools' role in this ecology, and redesign of teacher education. (JDD)

Analyzes the function of the elementary school and its development. (RK)

Argues that laboratory schools go awry because their goals and purposes are not clear. Underscores the major difficulties and hazards bearing upon laboratory schools: problems of function, differing values, and external and internal support. Proposes constructing or re-creating these schools through dynamic, forward-looking, inquiry-sustaining…

The lesson of educational change failures in the sixties is that educational change requires staff initiation and control as well as support from the surrounding culture. Recent studies point to a new agenda for educational change in the eighties that will succeed only if the mistakes of the sixties are avoided. (JM)

A recent study suggests that the broad idealistic educational objectives voiced by states and districts are a far cry from what is really being taught in classrooms. The question that now must be faced is what we want schools to teach. (JM)

Part of the monthly Saturday Review supplement, "Education in America," sponsored by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

Schools should stimulate, challenge, and, above all, educate children, but not primarily in the three R's. The common school, which emphasizes learning how to learn, is essential to the preservation and cultivation of a democratic way of life. (CJ)

Reprints of four articles from the journal "Phi Delta Kappan" provide discussions of initial findings from "A Study of Schooling," a study of contextual variables in 38 elementary, junior high/middle, and high schools. The project had two purposes: (1) to formulate hypotheses and provide insights about schooling through indepth…

This book about the relation of education to society has as its thesis that the proper context for education is a politically and socially democratic one. The first chapter considers what education is and is followed by chapters discussing the relationship of education to democracy, community, schooling, its conditions, and the self. Throughout…

This paper addresses, from an ecological perspective, the idea that a system of education includes much more than schools, encompassing such elements as families, day-care centers, peer groups, television broadcasters, and workplaces. At the core of such an educational system are educative communities, of which schools are an important part. If…