The primary purpose of this paper is to emphasize and reiterate the centrality of the faculty role in tutoring and learning centers, where peer-to-peer, discipline-specific collaborative learning is the primary objective. This paper provides a breadth of content for practitioners in the field and also assists those seeking to understand the unique…

Kindergarten has changed significantly in the last two decades: children now spend more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to…

In order to keep student athletics in a proper perspective to the complete educational program, principals must make clear their emphasis on scholastic endeavors. This article suggests several ways a principal can promote positive attitudes toward and among high school athletes. (WD)

Presents some steps the superintendent can take to encourage academic excellence in his/her district. Provides guidelines to use in working with a curriculum committee. (IRT)

A teacher of high school students with learning disabilities suggests that not enough is demanded of these students. He describes his classroom program, which focuses on the specific challenges students will face and the standards they will have to meet in the adult world of work. (DB)

The credentialist thesis is applied to high school graduation requirements by tracing their transformation according to societal demand. Because of demands for further education and academic excellence, secondary education presently occupies a modest position in American status aspirations and has encumbered its curricula with unrestricted…

This article briefly reviews the central ideas associated with the notion of systemic reform and indicates how these ideas are manifested in the draft of the National Science Education Standards. The draft is critiqued and what the critique suggests about the viability and utility of the notion of systemic reform is considered. The discussion…

This summary reviews the rationale for defining English language arts standards for K-12 students and the perspective on language learning that informs them. After presenting 2 of the 12 standards and discussing them briefly, the summary provides a vignette to illustrate how the standards might be manifested in a classroom setting. (RS)

This paper presents the position of the Organization of History Teachers (OHT) regarding the development of national history standards by the National Standards Project. The OHT position suggests that the Project should recognize that standards aiming for excellence in precollege history teaching require changes in the education of teachers, the…

Suggests a program for the semiskilled worker or nonacademic student that could help address the present needs of the students as well as prepare them for future careers. (WD)

Five approaches to grading student tests are described and their advantages and limitations are examined. It is suggested that the fifth approach, which takes into account the general ability level of the class and applies predetermined percentages to determine the number of students receiving each grade, is the most rational approach. (JMD)

Recommendations of a committee which considered implications of mathematics reform for students who are deaf are summarized. The committee accepted all of the recommendations recently issued by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Guidelines are organized in terms of what to teach, how to teach it, and putting changes in place. (DB)

Many community college faculty are concerned with academic standards at their institutions, in part because in the late 1960s and during the 1970s standards became associated, in the minds of many teachers and students, with personal rigidity rather than academic rigor. Faculty who wish to re-examine academic standards with their colleagues…

An examination is provided of the limitations and the characteristics of community college honors programs. Introductory comments point to the potential of honors programs as one of the few opportunities for mid-career community college faculty desiring growth within a traditional institutional framework, while characterizing most existing…

Essays by four community college chief executive officers (i.e., Michael E. Crawford, Donald L. Newport, Mary M. Norman, and Donald G. Phelps) suggest ways in which community colleges can implement programs and practices that will improve the position of the associate degree and the community college in American higher education. (DMM)