For the 12 years that Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York City, the Big Apple was home to the nation's largest experiment in implementing the business model of education reform. The numbers of public school closings and new charter schools soared, while the high school student assignment system was overhauled to be driven by choice. By the…

Charter schools--what was their original promise? They would enroll diverse groups of students. They would give teachers the room and power to innovate. They would be educational laboratories that would find new ways to reach students, and they would share those lessons with other public schools. But charter schools haven't lived up to their…

Describes the "Across the Lines" project involving an interchange between students and teachers of two racially isolated schools in the Hartford (Connecticut) area. A racial mix of 50/50 was achieved through planned science museum visits, randomly paired pen pals, and an MCI electronic mail connection between schools. (MLH)

Outlines the differences between collaborative efforts and cooperative ones. Provides a discussion of concepts of interrelationships and institutional/organizational relationships. Points to the lack of research available on collaborative efforts. Includes models of cooperation and collaboration, examples contrasting collaboration and cooperation,…

Reared in a hierarchical environment, teachers in Germany have had difficulty working with team structures despite the benefit of increased professional autonomy. The Holweide Gesamitschule in Cologne, a large comprehensive high school begun in 1975, developed a plan to diminish big-school anonymity and emphasize cooperation among children of…

Discusses the importance of collaboration between teacher education institutions and schools. At the heart of these collaborations should be the goal of improving the way children learn in school. (MD)

About 96% of youngsters in Northern Ireland are educated either in Catholic schools or in state-operated, predominantly Protestant schools. Since 1985, 40 integrated schools of all grade levels have sprung up throughout the country. At integrated schools, which maintain balanced ratios, students talk about their common history. (MLH)

Describes the Child Development Project in California, which holds that academic and character education are equally important goals for schools. The project has been established to produce long-lasting effects on children's "prosocial" development. (MD)

When Joanne Rooney, a principal, asked 17 tenured teachers who were due for their formal supervisory visits at Pleasant Hill School in Palatine, Illinois whether her annual visits and follow-up conferences help them become better teachers," her question was met with muffled laughter. They knew that her rushed, mandatory visits and conferences…

The millions of public educators are working tirelessly and the US is spending billions of dollars annually to solve one of the country's most vexing social problems, education achievement gap and its horrific life consequences for millions of children, particularly of color. The problem is a stubborn one, with deep-rooted impediments to its…

The stages of development of the process of collaboration between Queens College, the New York City Board of Education, and Louis Armstrong Middle School, are presented in an effort to help universities and schools form partnerships. (MD)

High school teachers often have difficulty motivating struggling students to complete homework--especially in inner-city schools in which many students are discouraged by stressful living conditions. The authors consulted with successful urban educators who were involved with innovative, small high schools in New York City, and asked what…

A consensus among government, the private sector, and education recognizes that youth socialization and skill development are critical to the future direction of all social institutions and must be shared through a new set of multi-institutional relationships. (Author/MLF)

Discusses the use of coaching to establish a communal learning effort among teachers and reinforce skills introduced through inservice. Issues examined include the length of coaching, who should coach, training coaches, coaching's effects, the relationships of evaluation and supervision to coaching, the principal's role, and implementation. (MCG)