New England's reputation for world-class educational excellence is well-earned but tenuous, especially as a changing world demands increased levels of learning for a much broader population. People know the current K-12 system is not producing enough students with the knowledge necessary to succeed in college. Too few enter higher education. Too…

Notes that despite students' attitudes, educators need to remember the best in those students, the times when they show enormous kindness. Describes an example of this one winter day in the author's ninth-grade English class. (SG)

Reprints a 1989 article from this journal describing what happened when students who could not read and write like other kids were turned loose in a computer lab. Updates the article with an Afterword commenting on the earlier piece. (SR)

Describes the Meaningful Other Person (MOP) program instituted at a North Carolina ninth grade center that reduced the dropout rate by 50 percent. (FL)

Nostalgically reviews a student teacher's experience with a class of ninth grade nonreaders. (JK)

Describes an English teacher's experiences when one of his ninth grade classes studying language in advertising was filmed for national television. He found that he and his students all enjoyed their celebrity status, but the glamor surrounding the medium itself obscured the intent of the lesson. (AM)

The author asserts that, in both the junior high school movement and the more recent middle school movement, the ninth grade was considered expendable. He suggests that it is time to resolve the bothersome questions as to whether the ninth grade belongs in the junior or senior high school. (SJL)

Reports on a study that examines the planning and revising of ninth-grade coauthors to determine how collaborative writing socializes and impacts the writing process. Finds that the students' writing processes tended to resemble those of more expert writers--planning, composing, and revising collapsed into a truly recursive process. (TB)

Argues the importance of teaching fractions and discusses examples of fundamental problems in students' conceptualization of common fractions and decimal fractions. (SS)

Presents three open-ended problems as a basis for discussing concerns and possible hazards in their solution, including partial answers or unjustified guesses, and considers the appropriate use of these types of problems. Appendices include problem solutions. (MKR)

Defines "culture,""identity," and "struggling reader" and explores several assumptions underlying the cultural construction of struggling readers and how such assumptions influence their reading identities. Uses those assumptions to interpret a case study of a ninth-grade boy. Offers suggestions based on the student's case for working with other…

Compares instructions for taking a ninth-grade achievement test to the reality of the conditions in which the test was actually taken. (NKA)

The New York City Board of Education's unit on Latin America (Global Studies Grade 9) is a welcome and useful aid to teachers seeking to develop a social studies curriculum with a global perspective. Besides the contemporary relevance, the methodology of the curriculum closely adheres to current thinking on teaching social studies. The lessons and…

The experience of one high school in New York State offering physics to freshmen is described. Advantages and disadvantages of this approach are discussed. Curriculum alternatives within the New York State guidelines are presented. (CW)

Research has shown that in the small group setting, students develop well articulated understandings and better recall of their readings. One study, however, showed negative results in terms of recall, understanding, and personal response for small group work in eighth-grade literature classes. Those findings led to follow-up research on the…