This report contains 31 group discussion reports and the texts of two speeches delivered at the general session. These speeches, both dealing with relevance in the curriculum, were presented by W. H. Worth, Deputy Minister of Advanced Education in Alberta and the Honorable Thomas L. Wells, Minister of Education. The discussion reports are…

ERIC abstracts on alternative schooling, announced in RIE through August 1972, are presented. The key terms used in compiling this collection are "community schools" and "experimental schools." The documents present materials on alternative learning plans, community involvement in developing alternative plans, case studies, and information about…

This speech by the U.S. Commissioner of Education Discusses federally funded programs in career education; their scope, finances, and objectives. It also touches upon the need for vocational education programs, and the 1976 amendments to the Higher Education Act. (MML)

Today educators are finding the public turning in greater numbers to alternative forms of instruction, including Transcendental Meditation, apprenticeship, and consciousness-raising groups. This paper attempts to (1) map out the "universe" of instruction, going beyond the frontier of public elementary and secondary teaching to consider other…

A review of the literature on cooperative, competitive, and independent reward structures and performance is presented, and conclusions are drawn which reformulate current beliefs about the interaction between reward structure and task structure. A brief theory of reward structure and performance is described, and conditions under which…

This paper summarizes the findings from a two-part evaluation study which compared the effects of five model preschool intervention programs and examined 5-year longitudinal data on the effects of three of these five programs. The original five programs (Traditional, Community-Integrated, Montessori, Karnes and Bereiter-Engelmann) represented a…

This report represents a summary of the East Hartford, Connecticut, effort to establish an educational voucher system and the reasons for its defeat. Sections focus on the four basic issues that underlie any voucher plan: (1) nonpublic school involvement, (2) competition and the creation of an artificial market, (3) parent power and resultant…

Recently, educational evaluation has attempted to use the precision, objectivity, and mathematical rigor of the psychological measurement field as well as to find ways in which instrumentation and data utilization could more directly be related to educational institutions, educational processes, and educational purposes. The linkages between…

Traditional measures of academic performance, attitudes, expectations, self-esteem, and learning transfer were compared at formal and informal schools. Informal school students showed more positive attitudes toward school and teachers and greater transfer of training of learning to nonschool settings. No differences were found for academic…

A selective list of clues to a quality education. (Available from Educational Communication Center, P.O. Box 657, Camp Hill, PA 17011; $12.00 annually.) (MLF)

The argument presented in this article is that, since the population of urban school districts is largely comprised of poor and minority youngsters, a decline in alternative education programs will have far-reaching implications for those concerned about quality education for these groups. (Author/EB)

FOCUS is an alternative school program for alienated high school students, designed to prevent them from dropping out. The key components of the program are discussed. (KC)

Although public schools carried out their social functions with success and acceptance in the past, they have resisted efforts for reform and are now seen as discriminatory and authoritarian, and as political instruments of social repression. (Author/EB)

Distinguishes the differences between our present system of schooling and education, which deals with developing the human potential. Views the concept of community education as the best model for the effective conversion of a school system to an education system. (Author/MLF)

Based on results from the nonequivalent control group design, the mean performance in the nonvoucher and traditional voucher programs remain similar. It is quite plausible that the loss of teacher time due to planning, developing, and modifying a new curriculum led to the loss in reading achievement. (Author/CTM)