The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the states that have designed strong history standards and note what has made them exceptional so other states might do the same. They include Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina. The report draws on interviews with individuals from each state who sat on…

State educational agency efforts to promote linguistic and academic achievement for English language learners (ELLs) are critical to improving educational outcomes, such as high school achievement, graduation rates, and postsecondary opportunities. This brief begins with a national snapshot of the achievement and educational outcomes of ELLs and…

Explores the role of academic departments within contemporary comprehensive high schools. Argues for further research acknowledging secondary schools as fundamentally different from elementary schools. Department specialization and differentiation are key elements in understanding differences. A two-stage exploratory study shows that departments…

Expresses concern with the trend in K-12 education to subsume oral communication programs under the rubric of language arts in English departments. Uses California as a case study to examine whether English teachers are integrating speech communication into the English classroom. Finds that little direct instruction in communication principles and…

High school students continue to struggle in algebra, especially in large inner-city schools with underprivileged students. Students are not the only ones skirmishing with algebra. Teachers and school leaders are just as frustrated as they search for answers to complex teaching and learning problems. Two high school principals report the results…

This study was designed to examine the school's role as a context of professional community for secondary school teachers. The literature suggests that conditions of shared goals, coherent instructional plans and curriculum, and collaboration within a faculty is largely a matter of effective site management. This paper questions the top down view…

To discover whether professional journals stimulate changes in classroom practices among California public high school department heads, the author reviewed the literature and conducted a questionnaire survey of a stratified random sample of department heads in English, mathematics, physical education, science, and social science. The 549…

In this bulletin, the author shares his observations on the status of art education in America. The study for this report is based upon the writer's own contacts in the education and industrial world and upon returns of a questionnaire which was sent to leading art educators, directors, supervisors, and teachers throughout the country. The author…

A study sought to determine the extent to which local accountability systems exist in vocational education and to describe the nature of the underlying relationships between such programs and their constituents. Data were collected through interviews from two local vocational education programs in each of five states (California, Florida,…