At its heart are the National Education Association's "Status of the American Public School Teacher" surveys, which are conducted every five years and offer unprecedented insights into the professional lives and experiences of teachers nationwide. This volume analyzes and summarizes the survey's findings, while also offering commentaries…

Elementary school children in the United States are not developing acceptable levels of mathematical proficiency (National Center for Education Statistics, 1999), and a major concern of teacher educators is that teachers lack the depth and flexibility of mathematical understanding and the corresponding beliefs they need to teach for proficiency…

This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs summarizes the findings on issues related to teacher quality in the chapter by the author in the book, "The State of Education Policy Research" (Cohen, Fuhrman, Mosher, Eds., 2007). This report also draws on discussions that took place during a summer, 2006, policy briefing on teacher labor-market issues…

Public school art education in the United States has been around for over 125 years. Professional art education associations of one kind or another have been with us for at least 100 years. The National Art Education Association has provided information and support to art teachers for many decades, but the truth is that most public school art…

Presents personal observations of cultural differences regarding the family, time, sex role conventions, and the process of being and becoming among children and parents in Licodia Eubea, Sicily. Supports increased understanding of students' cultural heritages and differences on the part of American elementary school teachers in multicultural…

This study explores the thinking and decisions of Vera (pseudonym), a Hispanic elementary teacher, while she enacted a reform-based science curriculum in an urban school in the southern United States. Vera's thinking, decisions, experiences, and practices were documented over a 2-year period. Using the data collected from semistructured…

Provides an overview of the issues shaping efforts to reform elementary education in the People's Republic of China. China's school organization and practices invite comparison with aspects of the U.S. system of elementary education. Enduring features of Chinese elementary education are discussed. (Author/BB)

This monograph describes elementary teacher education in South Korea and aspects of Korean society that have contributed to the uniqueness of this educative process. Within the context of comparative education, the essay introduces the cultural, social, and institutional attributes of Korea; discusses specifics of the educative process as a…

Section One of this report describes art education as it exists in American schools. Section Two discusses societal factors adversely affecting art education. Section Three examines National Endowment policy for improving art education. Section Four discusses deceptive panaceas for such improvement. Section Five provides recommendations for…