Schools usually adopt year-round education (YRE) for its cost saving features, but a year-round calendar affects all aspects of a school. The primary educational benefit of YRE is that it facilitates continuous student learning. YRE's effect on the curriculum is more complicated at the secondary level than at the elementary level. While studies…

At their summit meeting in February, 1990, the President of the United States and the National Governors' Association established the national education goal that "all children will start school ready to learn" by the year 2000. The process of reaching this goal will require a twofold strategy. First, families will need help in their…

The current 9-month school calendar emerged when 85 percent of Americans were involved in agriculture. Today, only about 3 percent of Americans' livelihoods are tied to the agricultural cycle, and air-conditioning makes it possible for schools to provide comfortable learning environments year-round. Noting the National Education Commission on Time…

The impact of school-based management (SBM) on student performance is examined in this digest. The first part describes school-based management and its potential for improving student performance. A review of research concludes that, overall, school-based management has not contributed to consistent or stable improvements in student performance.…

Interest in character education is reemerging in light of apparent increases in disaffected students, school violence, voter apathy, declining test scores, and disinterest in community involvement. Character education integrated into the school community is a strategy to help re-engage students, deal with conflict, keep students on task in the…

Although the role of the student development professional has changed along with the mission of the community colleges, the models providing a theoretical framework for the profession have remained relatively unchanged. In 1937, the American Council on Education published a statement which declared that student development professionals were to…

In most schools, especially urban high schools, teachers are colleagues in name only. Some schools, however, do foster substantial collegial relationships among teachers; and when schools are organized to support such teacher collaboration, the benefits are substantial. To make teacher collaboration possible and effective, two fundamental…

Students exhibiting failure syndrome approach assignments with low expectations of success and tend to give up at early signs of difficulty. This Digest delineates the nature of failure syndrome, suggests strategies for coping with failure syndrome students, and discusses how teachers can help. Some students, especially in the early grades, show…