This book is intended to serve as a stimulus for discussion of what is needed to provide all American children with a world-class education opportunity and to make education a top priority in every state and the country as a whole. A range of contributors offer a diverse number of possible solutions to the current educational crisis in American…

This article presents a critical analysis of language ideologies in the instructional discourse of Spanish for heritage speakers in the United States. We focus on the discourse present in prefaces and introductions to Spanish for heritage speakers textbooks published between 1970 and 2000. Whereas previous research on language ideologies in…

This book describes how and why educational choice movements will affect public education. It uses a public-choice approach to argue that both the supporters and opponents of private and school choice have failed to address several critical issues. Following an introductory chapter, chapter 2 is devoted to the rationale for contracting out…

Case-based teaching as a strategy to effectively weave theory, practice, and problem-solving into the preservice teacher education curriculum is gaining momentum in the preparation of future teachers. Teacher educators have discovered that the case study method provides a valuable link to the "real world" of teaching as well as…

This document provides materials prepared for and discussed at a workshop to analyze the problems facing Central and Eastern European countries in the management of the vocational education and training (VET) system. Part I gives an outline of the major research findings and reflects the discussions of the workshop. "Management of Vocational…

Traditional efforts to reform education have not succeeded because the education system has resisted major change. Achieving meaningful reform will require educational restructuring, and this restructuring will have to be based on competition, which is a basic fact of every other profession. For this reason, many states are moving to adopt…

Parents have the legal right to send their children to private schools. This paper presents findings of a survey that compared the opinions of sitting school board presidents (n=1,500) with those of Chamber of Commerce executives (n=1,300) across the United States. The survey asked each group about their attitudes toward charter schools,…

This book presents concerns and raises questions about the choice programs being proposed and implemented around the United States. It argues that poorly conceived, hastily enacted choice programs may do more harm than good. The demand for educational choice may result in lost opportunities for students (some groups more than others), weakened…

The purpose of this report is to describe how Minnesota technical college students can be empowered through vocational education to be full participants in the labor force and to deal with the changes that they encounter in the workplace. Chapter 1 introduces the problem of keeping up with changes in the ways in which work is performed. Chapter 2…

The role of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the certification of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers is discussed. The professional association has been considering taking on a certification role to reduce discrimination against non-native speakers trained to teach ESL, sometimes passed over in favor of…

The six chapters of this volume address issues related to emerging technologies and competition as higher education leaders plan for their institutions' development. A preface identifies common themes of the individual papers, including changes in higher education enabled by or driven by information technology, the authors' shared belief that the…

This study examined the relation of parenting style and parents' personality to children's Type A behavior pattern. Teachers rated 38 second- through fifth-grade children on the Matthews Youth Test for Health (MYTH), which was used to measure children's Type A behavior. Two subscale scores, leadership-competitiveness and impatience-aggression,…

The requirement of the state of Louisiana that teaching certificates be renewed for all state teachers led to the development of the System for Teaching and Learning Assessment and Review (STAR), an on-the-job teacher evaluation process. This study examines the relationship between student perceptions of their classroom environment and teacher…

This study examined the success of narrative report cards, an alternative method of reporting student progress, at an elementary school in Virginia. Surveys about narrative reports were sent to parents of first and second graders, and two teachers at each grade level were interviewed about the reports. Results indicated that both parents and…

One of a series of units on business issues designed for secondary school students, this packet focuses on the farmers' cooperative corporation, a particular type of business organization created to increase farmers' control of the production and marketing of their goods. Two separate sections consist of a teacher's guide and student materials.…