Amaya Garcia of New America talks with Kappan about grow-your-own programs, in which school districts partner with teacher preparation programs to recruit and prepare community members, often current students or school staff, to teach in local schools. A recent 50-state scan shows that there is a great deal of variety in how these programs are…

Less than fifty percent of African American students graduate from high school. Their educational failure is built into the racial structure of curriculum, standardized testing, teacher preparation programs, and even teacher recruitment pathways. "Shut Up and Listen" argues that African American students should be taught to navigate and resist the…

In this article, the author discusses the military recruiting in high schools that has been a mainstay of the so-called all-volunteer armed forces from the start. High school kids are at an age when being a member of an identifiable group with a grand mission and a shared spirit--and never underestimate a distinctive uniform--is of exaggerated…

After the quality of a school's teachers, the quality of a school's leaders is the most influential school-based factor affecting student learning, and research indicates that leadership impacts student achievement the most in academic settings serving students who traditionally have not done well in school. In an effort to provide high-quality…

This article describes the ways that will help school directors in promoting their band program. An example is the Roanoke-Benson High School Band in Illinois which, fourteen years ago, had just twenty-four members. The low enrollment was understandable considering that the high school had 195 students. However, through an assertive effort to…

Understanding the nature of science is even more important than mastering its details, says Alan Leshner, Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in an interview with Educational Leadership. In this article, Leshner discusses the controversy about teaching evolution, and he asserts that demands to…

In this article, the author talks about a provision that President Bush put the near end of his "No Child Left Behind" Act, forcing school districts to share with military recruiters the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all high school juniors and seniors. Here, the author features the National Network Opposing the…

Available research supports a belief that a high-quality mathematics education for high school students cannot be accomplished unless a highly qualified mathematics teacher is in the classroom. This author primarily addresses the need for small, rural schools in Missouri to employ such highly-qualified mathematics teachers, although he also states…

Since the first edition was published in 1994, Rethinking Our Classrooms has sold over 180,000 copies. This revised and expanded edition includes new essays on: (1) science and environmental education; (2) immigration and language; (3) military recruitment; (4) teaching about the world through mathematics; and (5) gay and lesbian issues. Creative…