The changing role of the kindergarten in U.S. educational history illustrates the ways in which educational reforms are altered as they survive. From a reform aimed at altering the relationship between school and community, kindergarten has become essentially a way to get children ready for first grade. (SLD)

Explores the role that schools can play in providing direction, guidance, and support to children and adolescents in the face of growing violence in society and in schools. Discusses the development and implementation of preventive measures such as additions to the curriculum, mentoring programs, child abuse and neglect programs, parent education,…

Presents excerpts of interviews of leading trendwatchers who have studied or participated in early childhood and prekindergarten efforts in public schools. Provides an excerpt from the National Child Care Association's position statement on publicly funded pre-k child care programs in public schools. (BB)

Constructing an arch of social dreaming means developing a politics of difference that actively contests the devaluation of persons relegated as "others." In this connection, features of critical pedagogy, the role it plays in the struggle against current neoconservatism, and the importance of language are considered. (SLD)

Cites statistics (illustrated in charts) that show overwhelming evidence that the status of children in the United States is threatened by social and economic forces including a changing family structure. Child advocacy groups recommend school-based services to help minimize adverse situations for children. (MLF)

Presents reflections of a former headmaster on the role of private schools and the importance of the choices they can provide. Proprietary schools that work say something visionary and hopeful even to public schools by illustrating the survival of multiple voices in a community. (SLD)

To implement a school-linked services approach, schools must use existing financing sources for programs in health, social services, juvenile justice, and other areas rather than adding social workers and nurses to the school payroll. Fiscal strategies then can reinforce the integrated services approach are highlighted. (SLD)

To examine the predictive value of family history in detecting children with high blood cholesterol, finger-stick screening was done in children (n=1,118) ages 9-10 with parental and grandparental history of cardiovascular disease and risk factors. Findings showed that screening only children with positive family histories will leave most problems…

Compares the arts and design context and attributes of the National Curriculum in England and the National Guidelines in Scotland. Concludes that art and design educators in both England and Scotland must work to remove bureaucratic constraints that prevent practitioners from controlling their own discipline. (CFR)

Longitudinal, retrospective, and cross-sectional data on the relationship between giftedness in childhood and adulthood indicate that children who became eminent adults did not necessarily fit conceptions of giftedness driving current school programs. The paper presents directions for school gifted programs and perspectives for families that are…

Teacher educators addressed negative student responses to a multicultural foundations course by designing an action research study to investigate students' identities, experiences, and beliefs. Analysis of written assignments and focus group discussions uncovered three categories of beliefs about the purposes of schools in relation to cultural…

Focuses on the Kentucky higher education accountability model, designed to provide a systematic evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of Kentucky's 14 community colleges. Offers coordinator perceptions of model's effectiveness. (YKH)

Studies how the local economic structure, as measured by local job opportunities, affects students' educational achievements, synthesizing studies from Florida, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Appalachian Virginia. A model is proposed to explain how the value placed on education is affected by local opportunity. (SLD)

Examined social adjustment among high school seniors who had immigrated from the former Soviet Union as early adolescents, investigating cultural influences and gender differences. Students considered the school's role to be academic. They felt more comfortable with same-culture peers and were only marginally influenced by the host culture. There…

In a reborn rural community populated by former urbanites, a small private school established by newcomers provides a place where upper-middle-class newcomer families negotiate their sense of rural place and contest that sense with working-class long-time residents' concept of rurality. Former urbanites' conception of rural community emerges as…