This paper analyzes the history, current practice, and dangers associated with Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). With roots in American progressive education and particularly in the movements for Outcome-Based Education and Self-Esteem, SEL is now pushed onto state and local education systems by the federal government and even international…

Standardized testing is a reality with which all educators must contend. Although the laws enforcing such assessments do so under the premise that students will thereby be assured an equal opportunity for academic success, they overlook a critical point--students are human beings with needs that reach beyond what is measured on a test. In this…

Policy can be a useful tool for effecting change, but policy analysis, which shapes policy development, has been underused in music education research. This paper demonstrates how Bardach's (2000) Eightfold Path can be used to develop solutions to problems in music education. Some have argued that school music programs do not prepare students to…

Continual additions of discrete educational programs are ineffective and deleterious to the educational system. The New American Schools Development Corporation and Goals 2000 are examples of systemic school-improvement initiatives. A new paradigm based on lifelong learning and individual and team growth is essential. A learning organization must…

This paper presents an evaluation of a Goals 2000 project being carried out in a rural western school district. The participants have embarked on a series of training modules designed to develop their skills with a variety of software applications and the integration of technology within the curriculum. Participants--administrators and classroom…

A Nation at Risk, Goals 2000, and No Child Left Behind are examples of external factors that compel educational leaders at local schools and districts to explore reform initiatives in order to meet federally required results. Because of political mandates to improve student learning and instruction, educational leaders are searching for…

Argues that the 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk" catapulted the issue of educational reform into the public sphere, fueling educational reform policy, corporate involvement, gubernatorial attention, and legislative action, culminating in the passage of "Goals 2000." Offers a critical review of the scholarly literature…

Much like the cycles and rhythms of the seasons, implementation of the national geography standards in Colorado has, over the course of a decade, grown, developed, and changed. As with the exciting beginning of spring, our time of planting was set in motion in 1993 by the passage of Colorado House Bill 1313, which set a deadline for school…

Instead of perpetuating a macroeconomic labor-exchange model, educators must discover how to promote individual career planning for everyone. If each person has one lifelong career, we must help people get and keep jobs, while helping them plan future worklives and balance work roles and responsibilities with other life roles. (22 references) (MLH)

This document is a background paper for satellite town meeting on the "Goals 2000: Educate America Act." The paper discusses the importance of studying the arts for themselves, and as a means of helping students learn other subjects. It suggests that studying the arts prepares students for the workplace and helps to build the United…

The process of instituting standards is well under way, thanks to mathematics teachers' efforts, the Bush Administration and governors' agreements about establishing national educational goals, and President Clinton's 1994 Goals 2000 legislation. There is no danger of a nationally imposed curriculum. States are using the standards process in…

In developing a national curriculum, ways must be found to challenge students and teachers, preserve initiative, and maintain democratic control. President Bush's New American Achievement Tests will consist of a system of examinations to be administered by individual states or clusters of states. Conversion should embody a grand,…

The intensive drive to promote national standards and assessments has gathered support from unproven connections between U.S. economic success and the nature of learning in schools. Now that teachers are being challenged to produce a bottom-up sea-change in their own classrooms, Uncle Sam's presence in the back of the room may be a growing problem…

In response to the critical need for geographical knowledge, educators and concerned stakeholders have built a national consensus regarding content standards in "Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994." The 18 standards for grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 specify the essential knowledge, skills, and perspectives that students…

Discusses the promise of recent movements such as constructivism and the infusion of technology in the curriculum for improving the achievement of all students in the core subject areas of the National Education Goals. Highlights include constructivist theory, principles of constructivist pedagogy, descriptors of constructivist teaching behaviors,…