The education model in which a single teacher instructs a single classroom of students has been remarkably persistent, but teacher shortages, low morale, and poor teacher retention are signs that it's not working well for teachers. Ray Reutzel and Parker Fawson describe how Utah's Center for the School of the Future is seeking to redesign the…

One high-leverage strategy rooted in a strong research base--the revitalized tutoring center--provides a wealth of opportunity to students who may be otherwise underserved. This embedded, open-all-day tutoring center supports collaborative teacher teams by using peer tutors and community volunteers. By centralizing resources and providing supports…

To close the gap between reading research and the reality of instruction, the authors developed a reading comprehension approach for elementary school, aiming at explicit instruction and practice of reading comprehension strategies. Their approach encompasses two complementary cornerstones: explicit instruction in reading strategies and creating…

Interim assessments are hot in American schools. Also called benchmark or periodic tests, these assessments are given every four to nine weeks to check on students' progress. Although interim assessments are an important tool for school improvement, they are easy to misuse. In the author's work coaching principals in a number of districts, he has…

A case study of inverse tutoring, in which a slow reader in the ninth grade tutored a first grader with speech and reading problems, indicates that both students benefited from the project. (WD)

Reviews the positive effects of integrating severely handicapped students into special classes emphasizing structured interaction with nonhandicapped peers. Includes factors to consider for successful integration. (MD)

The author discusses how cooperative partnerships between school and parents promote student achievement and have the potential to help resolve the crisis in educational productivity. (MD)

Describes Success for All reading program, its development in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and recent study evaluating its replication in 15 schools in 7 states. Program clearly improves student reading performance. Evaluations for previous years show program's effectiveness in Baltimore and Philadelphia. The longer a school remains in the program,…

Education in South Korea is compulsory only through the sixth grade, but most students continue through high school. Parents of high schoolers must pay $1,200 tuition and even more for textbooks and private tutoring. The driving force behind this nation's "education mania" is the take-charge Korean mother, who ensures that youngsters…

The author proposes a new model called "educational partnership" as an alternative framework for educational reform. In this approach, education is seen as a responsibility shared by the home, school, and community. (MD)

Japanese students are tracked, not into different programs within a school, but into entirely different high schools--academic, vocational, and commercial--that educate them poorly. Virtually 100% of public school graduates would fail college entrance exams without the "juku," or cram school. Reforms are not imminent, since the current…

The director of the Chicago Academy for School Leadership addresses the kind of leadership that would have kept her, a former English teacher, from failing a struggling African-American student 30 years ago. A culture of collegial support, mentoring/coaching, results-driven professional development, and instructional leadership would have helped.…

Fitchburg (Massachusetts) State College, surrounded by rapidly expanding African American, Asian, and Hispanic populations, was awarded a 1990 federal Student Literacy Corps grant to initiate a Literacy Corps Program. The program created and fostered literacy opportunities for area children, adolescents, and adults and helped participants develop…

Recent studies of turnarounds of low-performing schools have focused on the factors that made their successes possible. The author of this article realizes that it would also be valuable to look at what made the schools decline in the first place and the factors that might hinder their transformation. He focuses on some of the aspects of the…