American schools, after two decades of expansion, are now in the midst of an enrollment decline and inflation. The impact of the shift from growth to retrenchment and streamlining has been severe. An effective approach to this situation requires an understanding of the new conditions and of available alternatives for action. An overview of the…

The U.S. public education system, encumbered by an organizational structure developed at the turn of the century, is in trouble. This document presents a culminating discussion of the need to restructure the educational system. A strategy is suggested for examining the paradigms that maintain our educational system. A set of questions is provided…

The history of the school choice idea is briefly traced, and then some contemporary family choice models are examined in detail. "Tracking" was the major choice mechanism in public schools prior to recent efforts to expand the options. The alternative movement within individual schools began in the late 1960's, with many forms…

This monograph consists of 22 reprints of reports published since 1979 in the Middle School Journal's regular column "What Research Says to the Practitioner." Each report synthesizes research studies related to effective implementation of middle school programs and concludes with a list of references. The contents are divided into two main…

This report outlines changes in training and education that have taken place in the 1960s and the first years of the 1970s in three countries of Eastern Europe--the German Democratic Republic, Poland, and the USSR. Compiled in the report is information from legal and assimilated texts, as well as from studies and reports, articles, and…

This volume provides recent research findings on important topics related to the still-expanding middle school movement. They are divided into seven parts, addressing teaching/learning, curriculum, teacher education, social context, organization, leaderships, and issues and future directions. Following an introduction to middle level education…

This paper examines secondary schools in countries other than the United States to show the diversity of secondary school systems that operate within the industrialized world. The six countries are Australia, Germany, France, Japan, Sweden, and Great Britain. The descriptions are organized according to country and area of focus--learner outcomes,…

This background paper is a result of a literature review conducted under Project FORUM that identifies research-based inputs and processes related to student outcomes. It was intended to provide background information for the participants attending the Wingspread Conference on Inputs and Processes in October, 1998. In addition, the report is…