Summarizes 15 years of National Assessment of Educational Progress data on reading and writing in elementary schools. While reading performance has improved over the 1971-1984 period for black and Hispanic 9- and 13-year-olds and for younger disadvantaged children, writing results are less encouraging. Effective writing instruction may require…

Comments on the author's participation in the Elementary Education Study Group and on United States Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's 1986 report, "First Lessons." Praises Bennett's appreciation of poor families' efforts to help educate their children and his call for more challenging curriculum content and higher academic…

While many poor people of color have not really benefited from antipoverty and antidiscrimination programs, substantial gains in educational access have been achieved. Educators need to redefine objectives to improve minority children's education, focusing on language skills and character development appropriate to a diverse, multicultural…

Presents research evidence that exposure to desegregated schools leads to desegregation in other areas of adult life. Includes a table summarizing results from studies on effects of desegregation. (MD)

The national dialogue about the achievement gap can help policy makers and educators find ways to better serve minority students. However, school policy and practice must be founded not on perceptions of group stereotypes, the authors argue, but on knowledge about each student's needs and strengths. In this article, the authors present information…

The use of language is imperative to the intellectual development of children. Yet language minority children in all-English learning environments are forced to cope with shallow levels of learning while their future learning abilities are severely impaired. Bilingual education with native-language instruction is still the best option for children…

Terrel Bell, U.S. Secretary of Education during four years of the Reagan Administration, describes the political forces under which he ran the Department of Education. He points out that education passed through two difficult years during Reagan's first term, but that education fared better at the federal level after the release of "A Nation…

The Holmes Group report and the Carnegie Task Force report concur on the American problem of decreasing standards for entry into teaching during times of teacher shortage. This article compares and contrasts the two reports, refers to similar proposals, and raises issues not covered in either report. Four footnotes are appended. (IW)