Discusses the impact of accountability on educational quality at the state level, exploring various Texas student performance measures over the past decade that show improvements in school performance for minority and impoverished children. Discusses data from Texas Assessment of Academic Skills scores, National Assessment of Educational Progress…

Challenges the following assumptions: (1) parental choice will motivate schools to improve programs to compete more effectively for students; (2) private not-for-profit schools will respond to marketplace incentives; (3) research indicates an advantage of private over public organizations; (4) public choice theory promotes school improvement; and…

Discusses instances of federal intervention in education that failed to live up to expectations (support of curriculum reform in the 1960s, civil rights legislation, and equity policy). Suggests that the success of such interventions depends on (1) understanding of the causes underlying the problem under consideration, and (2) relevance of…

Focuses on issues relevant to educating homeless adolescents, including barriers to education, historical trends in homelessness, and reasons adolescents become homeless. The unique problems of this group, such as victimization and street life, are discussed with implications for educators. Recommendations are made for program and policy in this…

Describes a professional development research project concerned with equity in mathematics education. Project goals include teacher collaboration to learn about equity, racism, and schooling. Also, through the sharing of personal experiences, teachers learn how gender and cultural bias affect mathematics learning and their interactions with their…

Considers barriers to education faced by homeless children. Compares the development of the rights to education of homeless children and youth to the development of rights of the handicapped. Access to education is only the first step. Services must be provided to enable success to come from access. (SLD)

Discusses the scribal society, computer discourse, and computer literacy in the information age. Describes issues related to classroom dynamics, including new textual forms of knowledge, equity in access for children to acquire knowledge of multiple computer discourses, and necessary changes in instructional strategies to accommodate new discourse…

An overview of educational policies toward language-minority students from 1960 to the present indicates how often they have been ignored. The new national standards movement, America 2000, is no exception. The effects that this initiative might have on the education of language-minority students are explored. (SLD)

Analyzes concepts of access and success as they relate to educational practice for homeless students, describing a congressional policy shift and barriers to education. A survey of 45 state coordinators and a case study of the Chicago (Illinois) public schools reveal how difficult it is to provide success for homeless students. (SLD)