In a survey of 1,500 administrators, most of the 400 respondents agreed by an 8 to 1 margin that reforms to raise academic standards in public schools are necessary. In high schools, a decline in reading, vocabulary, and math skills is due basically to a decreased academic emphasis. Solutions include more required courses, more opportunities for…

A consortium of four institutions, based at Western Michigan University, was to plan a Research and Development Center on Student Testing, Evaluation, and Standards Setting. The four consortium sites are Boston College, the Dallas Independent School District, the University of Kansas, and Western Michigan University. This report is a final…

Issues concerning study abroad in the 1980s are addressed in 10 selected conference papers. Topics include program design, low-cost financing, curriculum design, academic standards, summer study programs, an exchange program between the University of South Florida and University of Paris VII, internationalizing the community college, curriculum…

Designed to facilitate the research related to the preparation and presentation of arguments for the intercollegiate debate topic, this manual summarizes issues surrounding educational reform and quality control in American elementary and secondary schools. The excerpts from books, periodicals, and other sources not always readily available to…

Three common policies used by English departments in Kuwait universities to accommodate the students in appropriate course types and levels are discussed and compared from a practical perspective. The three policies are concerned with placement tests and remedial courses and are intended to: (1) place students with high scores on the standardized…

The leadership, management, and academic concerns of deans and provosts are addressed in this casebook based on 25 original case studies on issues related to finance, personnel, organizational structure, curriculum, and academic freedom and standards. Two or more practical options for action accompany each presentation of a challenging problem.…

A project was conducted at Sumner High School in Sumner, Washington, to establish districtwide policies and procedures for granting equivalent credit for English, mathematics, science, and social studies skills taught in vocational education courses. Using as a guide the Washington Commission on Vocational Education's 1986 booklet entitled…

Bob Algozzine et al. studied Florida's minimum competency testing as a requirement for high school graduation and wrote a report titled "Analysis of Basic Skill Competencies of Learning Disabled Adolescents," from which this one-page summary was prepared. The study sample included 938 regular class students and 1,098 learning-disabled…

Current negative attitudes about the future of schools of education can be reversed if teacher educators reorganize, regroup, and rethink their position and change what they have historically been doing. The School of Education faculty at Radford University (Virginia) has undergone such a process and has: (1) assumed leadership in initiating…

The intent of women's studies, the academic arm of the women's movement, is to create critical space where the debate over power and the production of knowledge can occur through the argument that the exclusion of women from the knowledge base brings into question that which has passed for wisdom. A survey was designed to provide a descriptive…

The reactions of social studies educators to "A Nation at Risk," the report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education that examined the quality of education in the United States, are discussed. The survey was an informal one that asked educators, mainly teachers and professors, what their reactions were to the report in…

Perspectives on the context and results of the investigation conducted by the National Commission on Excellence in Education are presented. It is noted that the Commission's analysis sought to determine the extent to which colleges fail to set and maintain high standards, and the extent to which they fail to make their measures and benchmarks of…

Proposals for reform in teacher education from major organizations are reviewed, summarized, and compared in this document. Concise analyses are presented of: (1) The Need for Quality (Southern Regional Education Board, 1981); (2) "Educating a Profession: Profile of a Beginning Teacher" (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education…

This analysis of the changing balance in who controls the schools contends that local authorities have been slowly losing authority to the states. Moreover, within the local districts, the central offices are assuming more control in such matters as curriculum content and state testing programs. The paper begins with an overview of recent…

Beginning with the contention that the principal is the pivotal person in bringing about school improvement, this paper reviews several of the trends discussed in John Naisbitt's "Megatrends" and assesses their significance for public education in general and for the role of the principal in particular. These trends include (1) the shift…