Vermont experienced a rapid expansion of federal childhood funding and programs (accompanied by their voluminous and sometimes contradictory regulations), and identified the need to unify the system after recognizing that the complexity of the early childhood education service delivery system was bewildering for parent-consumers. This report…

The study described in this summary explores school and community factors that encourage parent participation in decisions that affect the quality of children's schooling. Its primary objective was to identify and compare factors that foster parent networks around school issues in suburban and urban areas. Five groups mobilized by middle class…

This vocational guidance training model is designed for vocational and technical education teachers who need special instruction in order to function effectively as members of vocational guidance teams in schools that have competency-based vocational education programs. The model defines vocational guidance, vocational education, competency-based…

The theme of the conference reported on here was school reform and related issues. An introductory statement, "Thoughts on School Reform," by Jerome Bruner, and a list of conference participants are followed by a group of papers on education and politics. The papers are "Reform and Partnership in Education," by Albert Shanker;…

This paper provides a brief review of the issues regarding families in early intervention programs for handicapped children and proposes the assessment of family needs as a first step in designing family-focused interventions. While traditional approaches to early intervention tend to be exclusively child-focused, professionals are encouraged to…

The Campus Compact project is a collaborative effort of college administrators to strengthen students' commitment to public service through the curriculum. The group's activities include fostering public service programs in colleges and universities, reinforcing student service work, and encouraging faculty to build service elements into the…

Data from a descriptive study of the impact of professional development school (PDS) involvement on teacher preparation at three Massachusetts colleges is related to three themes: uniqueness of PDS-related techniques, approaches, and philosophy; mechanism and spread of these techniques, approaches, and philosophy; and signs of institutionalization…

States that science and technology research reached a new level of exposure in the U.S. government in 1997, particularly environmental science, cloning, international cooperation on the International Space Station, and information technologies. Lawmakers introduced research legislation and the House Science Committee launched a science policy…

Global competition, coupled with the United States' loss of its competitive economic edge and its failure to sustain and develop a highly skilled work force, has created a new and serious challenge. To meet this challenge, the State Employment and Training Commission has developed a series of recommendations, called the Unified State Plan for New…

This lecture describes the legal status of parental rights pertaining to German schools, and ideas about the practical problems of cooperation between parents and schools in Germany, especially under the auspices of a multicultural society. Four legal parental rights are listed: (1) the right to decide if their child should attend private or state…

Case studies are presented of three gifted students, indicating the social and academic problems which are standing in the way of their potential development. The students include a Vietnamese-American ninth-grade girl who has difficulty with English and does not feel accepted by other students, an underachieving seventh grade boy who speaks out…

In 1971, the 25th Session of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) adopted a Programme for the Development of Socialist Economic Integration. Later, part of this program became a program of cooperation in the field of oceanography, particularly the chemical, physical, and biological processes of certain important areas of the ocean. To…

This three-part paper describes a pilot demonstration project for training psychology graduate students and social-work agency personnel to provide mental health services for minority adolescents and their families. The training model assumes that all participants possess skill and knowledge that can be shared with each other and that a strong…

This description of the Partners in Encouragement (PIE) program and the methods used to implement the program provide a model for school counselors to combat teacher burnout and improve morale. A discussion of the preliminary planning needs focuses on ways to inform prospective participants of the program, and outlines the introduction to be…

Black land-grant institutions have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades, being forced to reevaluate their missions, develop new student recruitment strategies, and forge new relationships with predominantly White colleges and state legislatures in an effort to survive and to serve their clientele. (MSE)