Clarifies the concept of universal basic education. Highlights the need for performance criteria and ways to measure literacy attainment. Identifies issues related to improving primary education, seeing adult literacy as its necessary complement. Underscores the substantial resources required to achieve universal basic education. (CH)

Discusses the Holmes Group's recommendation to abolish undergraduate degrees in education and require liberal arts majors for teachers and examines ways to teach students subject matter so they see connections between the disciplines, between the subject matter and the world, and between their lives and the subject matter. (SM)

Analyzes the introduction of productive work into the Brazilian schools in the 1980s. Explains that productive work is a form of vocational training that combines general education and productive work in one institution. Concludes that the production school is not a feasible alternative in improving education for the lower classes. (RW)

Maintains that open and distance education represents contemporary education forms that respond to the shift to late-modernity, especially in educational technology and student-teacher relationships. Drawing on the work of Anthony Giddens, uncovers relationships among distance education, late-modernity, and the self. (CFR)

Maintains that improving preservice geography teacher education is difficult because few geography faculty understand the teacher education process and many education professors are not well-educated geographically. Discusses 13 recommendations to improve preservice geography teacher education. (CFR)

Maintains that the National Geography Standards provide university geographers opportunities in the areas of program assessment and development. Describes a process that can strengthen programs and maintains that it will enhance geography's role in the preservice education curriculum. (CFR)

Examined the opinions of principals and teachers about appropriate school entry age. Found common belief that children should be at least five years of age when they begin school. Younger children have more problems academically and socially and tend to remain behind their older classmates. Results suggest that children be evaluated for school…

Describes the efforts of the Alaska Department of Education and geography educators to develop standards based on the National Geography Standards model. Discusses the statewide public consensus process and includes a chronological table of events. Provides six sample standards and performance criteria from the Alaska 2000 geography standards.…

Describes how school districts in Alberta (Canada) are successfully applying principles of total quality management (TQM). Overviews TQM principles and applications in educational settings including creating a constancy of purpose for educational improvement, eliminating student grading, managing a complete system, focusing on stakeholder…

Argues that the restructuring of the Soviet educational system needs to continue at a faster rate and can be facilitated best through the communist party. Discusses the importance of increasing teacher responsibility and developing teachers' creative efforts. Suggests that education, science, and culture should be considered priorities for…

Describes a program to improve problem-solving skills of children by incorporating parents as partners in cooperative learning experiences with the children. Research results indicate that students working with parental partners displayed higher problem-solving ability on posttests than those not working with partners. (MDH)

Studies how an urban school, the George A. Lewis Middle School, of the Roxbury section of Boston (Massachusetts) is changing its reputation. Under the process of controlled choice, the school is an example of how teacher professionalization can be a force for overall school improvement. (SLD)

Describes Thinking Mathematics, a research-based approach to teaching mathematics. Value is placed on thinking and communicating mathematically and using what is known to find the unknown. The program requires teachers to rethink their beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning mathematics. Examples of program implementation are given.…

Characteristics of schools that have succeeded in becoming unusually effective for all students include the following: (1) insistence that all participants take responsibility for improvement; (2) persistence in seeking to attain high standards; (3) resiliency in moving forward despite obstacles and discouragements; and (4) consistency in…

Challenges the following assumptions: (1) parental choice will motivate schools to improve programs to compete more effectively for students; (2) private not-for-profit schools will respond to marketplace incentives; (3) research indicates an advantage of private over public organizations; (4) public choice theory promotes school improvement; and…