When Peter Meyer moved to Hudson, New York and placed his child in the local school system, he was shocked at the abysmal quality of education there. He was even more surprised to learn that there was very little movement for reform. He joined the school board with the hopes of enacting new policies, but found instead that it was an ineffecient…

The author talks about graduation ceremonies getting out of hand, wherein graduates misbehave and act without proper decorum. Here, she presents the graduation ceremony at Plainfield High School as an example, when students bounced inflated condoms among their ranks. News of the resulting chaos was plastered in headlines in Chicago-area…

Virtually all writings about "Methodist involvement" in state-provided English education use Wesleyan material. It is the most accessible and it is complete: every year there is a report from the Wesleyan Education Committee to the Conference. Official information on the attitudes of the other British Methodist churches to elementary…

Principals are increasingly held accountable for student achievement. Why shouldn't schools, like other institutions, be judged on how successfully they perform their mission? Yet school leaders have a good reason to resist contemporary accountability programs. Instead of articulating the mission of schools and then holding leaders accountable for…

In 1978 Congress enacted an amendment to the General Education Provisions Act (the Hatch Amendment), which mandates two privacy-based safeguards in those federally funded programs "designed to explore or develop new or unproven teaching methods or techniques." Implementing regulations were issued last fall by the U.S. Department of…

The school board establishes a commitment to efficient energy management through its policies and budget priorities. Such a policy should include a statement of purpose, assign accountability for improving energy efficiency, and ensure that mandated standards are maintained. To permanently prevent energy waste, a gradual change to a comprehensive…

After-school care for children of working parents is a natural extension of the services schools provide. Setting up a school-based child care program requires making the commitment and establishing a task force that collects relevant information about the community, its needs, and opportunities for meeting needs. Programs are operated by the…

Annual reports from 45 states, the District of Columbia, and three Canadian provinces are presented. They focus on problems, activities, achievements, and other areas of interest to the postsecondary education community. Each state commission on higher education reviews such topics as pertinent legislative actions, priorities, enrollment,…

Explores the effects of pragmatic day-to-day considerations on mission and values within the North Carolina community college system. Reviews the public positions of representative power bases, stresses the importance of a strong mission policy grounded in tradition, and urges the state board to take a stronger leadership role. (DMM)

The History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, recently adopted by the California State Board of Education, focuses on three main goals: knowledge and cultural understanding, democratic understanding and civic values, and skills attainment and social participation. (TE)

Experiences in coping with an acquired immune deficiency (AIDS)-struck child demonstrated that the public can be trusted to be responsible if people are informed promptly and fully, and they see school officials acting quickly, decisively, and confidently. (MLF)

Procedural burden-of-proof issues led Federal Circuit Courts to affirm changes in pupil assignment systems in Norfolk, Virginia, but reject changes in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Supreme Court's decision not to review the Virginia case leaves school boards and federal courts without guidance on questions raised by resegregation. (MLF)

Describes advantages and forms of cooperation between schools and the elderly community, including political support for schools, older adults as educational resources, change of attitude toward elderly, and school involvement in community education. (LFL)

Relevant court cases suggest that administrators develop communication regulatory policies that restrict use of the school as a communications forum by both inside and outside interest groups. (CJH)

Profiles Atlanta's first Black superintendent, Alonzo Crim, who discusses 11 years of achievements, particularly the creation of a "community of believers" perception in the public mind. Board members and teachers provide evaluative commentary. (KS)