Many states have adopted minimal competency testing in reading or writing, assuming that goals of basic education are measurable and that testing for such goals is technologically feasible. It is not clear that such testing comes at a time in history when the quality of education is demonstrably lower than at other times in American education. The…

This paper is one in a series of four describing a boy-oriented program for elementary school children. It describes a "boy-oriented" classroom, playground, and extracurricular activities; a staff-development program; and development of a "boy-oriented" program package for dissemination purposes. It presents an evaluation of the program showing…

Productive changes in schooling throughout the 1980s are contingent on emphasis being placed on school effectiveness rather than on curriculum adjustments. Today's curriculum sprawl, caused by the state and federal legislatures' penchant for creating courses to cure newly-emerging social ills, must not deplete resources that should be directed…

The minimum competency goal that now dominates college basic skills instruction is not adequate to prepare the student for success in and beyond college. More can be accomplished within basic skills courses than the mere acquisition of literal information from a reading selection. The use of thematic unity can impose meaningful organization on the…

This paper suggests that now that science fiction has joined the educational establishment there is good reason to examine the uses of science fiction. It is further argued that if English teachers consider science fiction as a means rather than as an end, the teaching of science fiction will be improved and so will the more important tasks of…

While maintaining and diversifying the services offered in the Reading and Study Skills Laboratory (RASSL) at the University of Texas, the RASSL staff also offers a wide range of outreach services. Currently there are three types of activities carried out under the general title of outreach: Basic Outreach, Co-sponsored Instruction, and…

Recently the call for a "balanced" approach to the basic course in speech communication has caught the imagination of numerous directors and teachers of fundamentals courses. This paper examines the assumption that a "balanced" course in speech communication can provide significant improvement in the following respects: (1) the ability to see…

This research compared achievement of sixth graders in ten Michigan schools for the years 1965 and 1975. The "fundamentals" part of the California Achievement Test was the basis of comparison; school records were used to gather data on age, sex, and IQ of students in the two samples. School personnel were interviewed concerning prevailing…

This paper discusses the application of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to the evaluation of the effectiveness of Basic Skills programs in the Newark (New Jersey) school district. Whether HLM is able to handle regression effects in Basic Skills examination data is studied. The analysis uses data from the Stanford Achievement Tests for…

A mathematics curriculum for moderately and severely retarded and autistic students and adults should possess 10 necessary characteristics, including provision for instruction based on assessment results, stress on functional application, focus on generalization of skills, and specific criteria for mastery of each skill. The functional but…

A comprehensive student basic skills assessment program was developed at St. Louis Community College (SLCC) at Florissant Valley to appraise student readiness to take courses, gather information for counseling and advising, diagnose student problems, and evaluate program efficiency and effectiveness. The steps taken in developing the program were:…

In fiscal year 1987, approximately 12,000 inmates, or 29 percent of the 44,000 incarcerated adults at least 18 years old, enrolled in adult basic education (ABE) programs. Six thousand five hundred completed their programs. Another 3,500 enrolled in the General Educational Development (GED) program and 2,800 received diplomas. All inmates who…

Literacy and work force preparedness are two of the most important issues facing education today. Findings of nationwide studies show that reading and writing performance of students is inadequate. One of every eight current workers reads at the fourth-grade level or lower. The nation's economic future will be determined by the quality and…

Most major workplace literacy programs involve unions. Organized labor's current leadership in worker education and training is not a continuation of earlier activities but an expansion of union interest and activity that is unprecedented in the history of organized labor. These efforts do not rely on public funding, because many unions have…

The social context activity model of adult literacy instruction posits that literacy is a relative phenomena and literacy needs are specific to the individual and the social context within which the individual operates. Instruction is based on the concept of activity with a prospective focus on the formation of students' shared and personal…