An independent study of Baltimore City's Tesseract schools analyzes why the privately managed program failed. Results showed no gains on Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills scores. Baltimore was paying about 11% more per student than in comparison schools. EAI has succeeded in establishing the supremacy of Wednesday afternoons for staff development…

Undergraduate students (N=215) were surveyed in a study that explored the relationships between trait test anxiety (fear of failure) and state test anxiety (emotionality and worry). The study also examined the relative strengths of trait and state measures of test anxiety as predictors of college academic performance. (IAH)

Bureaucratic inefficiency aside, Chicago public schools are failing dismally in their basic educational mission. A new school reform plan promises to turn systemwide failure into success by weakening the central bureaucracy's power and turning the ignition key over to 541 school-based councils. A sidebar claims that courts could determine the real…

The language of geriatrics and gerontology reflects the generally held belief that potential for growth and development disappears when the elderly are severely disabled. To counter this mystique, the right to flourish must be advocated through policy, behavior, and attitude change. (SK)

Teachers tend to teach children in different reading groups in qualitatively different ways. Crows (slower readers) work on phonics in isolation twice as often as more accomplished Blue Jays and spend much less time on reading silently or in context. Since this situation inhibits reading achievement, teachers should seek Blue Jay potential in…

Reviews literature supporting "cultural deficit," the idea that membership in ethnic minority group is linked with academic achievement or, more specifically, failure. Examines ethnic paradigm of Asians as high achievers. Suggests researchers committed to ideas of cultural deficit support ethnicist conceptions of reform,…

Draws an analogy between the insurance business and at-risk students. Argues that being at-risk in reading means a failure to gain control over reading and reading to learn, leading to learned helplessness. Discusses factors associated with learned helplessness. Outlines what teachers can do for at-risk students. (RS)

Observations of mothers of 47 6-month-old infants with early histories of nonorganic failure to thrive indicated these mothers demonstrated less adaptive social interactional behavior, less positive affective behavior, and more arbitrary termination of feedings when compared to mothers of physically normal infants. (DB)

Experiences from evaluation of the American Sociological Association's Project to Improve Undergraduate Training in Sociology, and ways that evaluators can avoid alienating program participants are discussed. Data highlight the futility of measurement couched solely in terms of success and failure. A conceptual framework based on organizational…

Academic failure must be seen as a failure by school and student together. By discarding faith in the "average needs" of the "average child" and instead accepting diversity in learning styles (both abstract and concrete, sequential and random), teachers can approach school failure from a problem-solving perspective. (PB)

Discusses the physical, psychological, and developmental consequences of physical abuse, nonorganic failure to thrive, and sexual abuse. (RJC)

Questionnaire surveys were completed by 1,717 West German students between the ages of 13 and 16. Data support hypotheses that psychosomatic symptom frequency is reinforced when adolescents experience failure in school and social and emotional conflict in their relationships with parents. Multivariate analysis showed these effects to be…

Reviews the legal concept of "failure to train to standard" from the context of law enforcement. Responsibility for training is discussed, case examples and examples of monetary judgments are given, and recommendations for preventing and limiting liability for failure to train to standard are presented. (16 references) (LRW)

This article describes the formation of a small independent British school by parents of students temporarily informally excluded from school because of unhappiness, special need, or personal insecurity. Although the school closed after one year, it did provide respite for children attending it until they were able to go back to mainstream…

Explored student and classroom factors that place children at risk for referral to special education. One teacher-nominated at-risk student and one teacher-nominated not-at-risk student were observed in each of 24 regular primary education classrooms. Results indicated significant differences between at-risk students and their peers on academic…