This report presents the testimony of the president and program director of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Based in Washington, DC and in Dayton, the Institute is a nonprofit organization that supports research, publications, and action projects of national significance in elementary/secondary reform, as well as significant education reform…

School, parent and community partnerships have become an educational priority at both the state and federal levels. If teacher education programs are to meet the goals of the Illinois Professional Standards, the objectives of the federal Goals 2000, and the accreditation standards of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education…

This article examines the journey of a secondary school in its attempts to be more responsive to community values. The school had worked hard for many years to gain the trust of the Asian-heritage population, and, after much debate and consultation, it was agreed to teach boys and girls separately in the first three years. The article examines the…

For the thirty-fifth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the national AECT Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…

This paper reports the implementation of a collaborative pre-service science teacher education program between an Australian university and a collegiate of eight schools. The program was designed to facilitate the transition to teaching of pre-service teachers by reducing the gap between theory and practice while promoting the professional…

Estimates suggest that approximately 12% of South Africans are HIV positive. As a result of the rapid increase of infections in the mid-1990s and the concomitant increase in HIV/AIDS-related deaths, it is estimated that 13% of children have lost one or both parents due to AIDS. In this study data were obtained by open-ended written accounts by…

Two teachers participating in an online study group provided the foci for in-depth case studies. Transcripts of conversations they had with colleagues about issues related to reform-oriented pedagogy were analyzed from both acquisition and participation perspectives on learning. Both teachers exhibited mainly marginal changes to their pedagogical…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the associations between first-time full-time freshmen's attributes and fall-to-fall retention at Northeast State Technical Community College. The 15 attributes included age, first-generation student status, gender, high school classification, race, the student's application date to the institution…

This report summarizes AISD's 2007-2008 evaluation of year one implementation of the First Things First initiative at 3 high schools.

This article is a descriptive account of a professional learning community established among university professors, university teacher candidates, a school district instructional supervisor, the high school principal, a high school literacy coordinator, and teachers of a Mid-Atlantic high school in the United States. This learning community…

In an article in this issue of "Innovate", Jim Gee asks the question "What would a state of the art instructional video game look like?" Based on the game "Full Spectrum Warrior", he concludes that one model is "to pick [a] domain of authentic professionalism well, intelligently select the skills and knowledge to…

While psychology has tended to focus on urban issues in research and practice, rural areas have undergone a series of changes in recent years that have increased the need for behavioral health services. A variety of social and economic factors has contributed both to the increasing needs and to the inability of the existing services to meet them.…

The authors used data from seven schools in a metropolitan region to explore continuity and change in adolescent cultures and status structures; they identified six major types of status structures and explained variation among them in terms of characteristics of communities and schools. A key feature of the study is comparison of school climates,…

The achievement gap is clearly visible throughout the school years, from grade-school test scores through high school graduation and higher education. It divides American Indian, Asian, Black, Latino, and White students, and it divides the economically advantaged from the disadvantaged regardless of their race/ethnicity. Under the federal No Child…

The Seattle Public Schools serve one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation. The school system's enrollment represents many racial and ethnic groups and includes students from around the world who come to Seattle speaking many languages and families who came to the city generations ago. The challenge facing Seattle and all other major…