At a March 2000 meeting, Australia's state, territory, and commonwealth ministers of education committed to a set of principles and standards for more culturally inclusive schooling in the 21st century. Building on a range of policy statements developed over the last decade, these principles and standards are described in terms of social justice…

These papers were presented at a 1999 conference that examined expert, practitioner, and community based knowledge and perceptions about factors that facilitate or inhibit successful multilevel partnerships to improve education and other important results for children and families by connecting collaborative services with education reform efforts.…

This report describes the findings of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research's 1999 national survey, in its series looking at the impact of educational reform on primary and intermediate schools. In 1989 reforms were enacted that abolished the Department of Education and began elections for boards of trustees who took responsibility for…

This report presents the consensus of the Assembly Bill 1264 Task Force. The task force conducted a statewide review of standards and requirements pertinent to the preparation of teachers and other educators to serve as active partners with parents and guardians in the education of California's public school students. The report includes: an…

The schools that Head Start participants enter may have very different methods and attitudes than were present in Head Start, and a different approach to working with children and families. While Head Start programs are seldom in a position to bring about changes in the public schools, Head Start parents can be a powerful force for school change.…

This issue of "Working Papers in Educational Linguistics" begins with "Negative Evidence in Language Classroom Activities: A Study of Its Availability and Accessibility to Language Learners" (Teresa Pica and Gay N. Washburn), which revisits the issue of negative evidence in second language classrooms. The second paper,…

This study examined how the experiences of African-American and white students in a partial French immersion second grade classroom in Louisiana differed from the experiences of students in a regular education classroom. It focused on students' perceptions of themselves and others, students' interactions with their teacher and peers, parental…

How kids spend summer vacation has a direct and powerful impact on their success in school. This document presents 8 brief (600-word) newspaper columns that offer parents simple tips on how to promote learning through everyday activities. Each column ends with a referral for free resources to keep children learning outside the classroom. The…

This publication discusses education reform and the movement toward standards and assessments and its impact on students with disabilities. It is designed to provide parents with information about changes in assessment and graduation criteria, and assist parents in investigating the changes happening in their districts and states. Different…

This document presents a sampling of projects and activities that have been implemented in Tech Prep training in South Dakota, or will be implemented during the upcoming school year. The projects and activities are categorized into 12 areas: career clusters; career units and activities; curriculum materials; employability skills; entrepreneurship;…

Noting that young children have a natural sense of what is and is not fair, this guide is intended to help teachers develop an anti-bias curriculum using children's sense of fairness to guide them toward social activism. The book provides stories of children's experiences as activists, coupled with first-person accounts of teachers' experiences…

This study examined the reciprocal influence between parenting style and parental involvement in schooling practices and adolescent autonomy over a 2-year period. Participating in the study were 872 adolescents with a mean age of 14.5 years at Time 1 and attending 5 French-speaking public high schools in Quebec, Canada. From the initial cohort,…

Although parents are often very busy with work and family responsibilities, there are many things they can do to help their school-age children learn and develop. This Spanish-language early childhood digest for parents provides tips obtained from parents of first and second graders in the School Transition Study on creative ways to stay involved…

A 3-year experiment evaluated the effectiveness of the Pyramid program, an educational program for young children from deprived situations and based on two concepts: psychological nearness (principles of attachment theory) and psychological distance (derived from developmental distancing, or the growing ability of a child to comprehend that an…

This guide is a planning tool for establishing Head Start-Parent Teacher Association (PTA) partnerships, building effective transition practices from preschool to kindergarten, and promoting continuity in parent and family involvement. Designed for use by coordinators of early childhood, parent involvement, and outreach activities, the guide can…