Pursuant to a request from the Arizona State Board of Education, an interagency task force was formed in fall 1989 to examine the issue of values instruction in Arizona schools. This document begins with a summary of the resulting report, along with a list of suggested common core values, recommendations for development and implementation of a…

This paper addresses a decline in educational standards and discusses the role of curriculum. After defining the problem, it presents the evidence, pointing to the following factors: (1) decreasing student achievement after the fourth or fifth grade; (2) a curriculum that reflects and perpetuates this decline, e.g., by setting course requirements…

This paper argues that a major review of the theory of educational administration is required if it is to regain a credible role in academic and practical circles. The argument, which considers the case of regional directors in Victoria, Australia (a role similarly endangered on present assumptions and trends), has four major parts. First is a…

This paper compares pluralistic and equitable approaches to sociocultural and language teaching in Australian schools. The pluralistic view of multiculturalism overemphasizes ethnic differences with the hope that appreciation and tolerance will follow. In fact, fostering feelings of difference may increase racism and cultural chauvinism. This…

An earlier review (Daresh and LaPlant 1985) resulted in an impression that most field-based training in educational administration is understaffed and undervalued. Accordingly, this review analyzes the historical development of apprenticeship models used in the preparation and continuing education of practitioners in medicine and law, in order to…

This paper reviews current educational research and philosophy on effective school characteristics and discusses how to put them into practice. Prevailing beliefs among educators have advanced from "there are good and poor learners" to "there are faster and slower learners" and now to "most students are similar in learning…

This bulletin summarizes the principles of discipline and classroom management that appear to be successful. It also looks at how educators in Oregon and elsewhere are applying these principles in their schools. Despite differences of philosophy, certain principles are shared in some form by all schools of thought. The first chapter discusses…

Materials presented in this document focus on the historical development of culture and politics and their effects on education in Poland. This document proposes that Polish education is affected by the societal pressures of socialization and change and that schools socialize children in the cultural and philosophical behavior patterns of a…

E. D. Hirsch's call for authoritative knowledge about composition is flawed, according to this document, because he focuses on the product and not the process of composing, thereby excluding more of the problem of composition than he includes. Hirsch's principle of readability--that styles that communicate meaning with less effort from the reader…

The concept of "educational adequacy" may have its origin in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision, San Antonio v. Rodriquez, that the state's responsibility is to provide not equal education but an "adequate minimum educational offering," so that students will have the "opportunity to acquire the basic minimal…

This address provides a historical perspective on the concept of school effectivenss and argues for an enlightened synthesis of normative and empirical values. The first part, "Early Images of Effective Schooling," reviews the evolution of discourse on school effectiveness since the turn of the century. Although the early discussions…

Drawing upon experimental work in different history departments, Mark Cottingham explores "assessment for learning" principles in practice. He raises the problem of a clash between these approaches and the progression model inherent in the National Curriculum Attainment Target, and, crucially, the way in which history departments are…

In a critical examination of the state of teacher education, strong and weak areas are pointed out. The following six principles are offered as foundations upon which programs within schools and departments of education can be built: (1) All teacher education programs should be rooted in the knowledge of teaching and learning; (2) The principles…

The major theme of this book is that those who work in the schools should treat students equally and have a commitment to basic education for all children. Ethnicity should be considered a private matter in which the schools should remain neutral. First, the resurgence of ethnicity is examined. Ethnicity is defined and the shift in emphasis from…

Nine prevalent ideas about reading in the content areas are analyzed in this paper. The ideas are as follows: (1) students can not read textbooks because elementary teachers did not teach them to read; (2) students can not read textbooks because of poor phonics and word recognition skills; (3) "real learning" results from reading, rather than from…