A Texas superintendent reminisces about a high school English teacher with impossibly high standards for composition and vocabulary usage. Although she seemed scarcely human at the time, Mrs. Jones was remembered for expecting the best even from her most stubborn students. (MLH)

Activist who believed in demonstration and example, Ralph W. Tyler harnessed his theorems to social engineering and participated in astonishing number of watershed events: pursuing monumental Eight-Year Study, founding National Academy of Education, creating and directing Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University,…

Although Thomas Jefferson's view of freedom was the cornerstone of the Declaration of Independence, this founding father owned 170 slaves to run his 5,000 acre plantation. This article describes a unit developed by the Monticello (Virginia) Education Department that teaches secondary students about slave Isaac Jefferson while exposing them to…

Award-winning science author and Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould shares some views on education and contemporary American culture. Gould's most enthusiastic school memory is singing in an all-city chorus. Harvard students are bright and motivated but have no shared culture, historical perspective, or foreign language proficiency. Gould favors…

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is angry about the way education works in New York City and is determined to debureaucratize schools and make them safer. Memories of his own parochial school education inspire Giuliani to hold up the Catholic school system as a possible reform model. He favors school choice and differs with the chancellor over safety and…

According to the late Ralph W. Tyler, the purpose of life is learning. The school's role is to help children (and adults) discover scholarly activity. Teaching is a complex process that requires continual learning. The goal is to become self-directed learners. Cooperative problem solving is best pursued independently of outside financial…

Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent for National Public Radio, grew up in two cultures, saw his parents' marriage dissolve, and watched his mother toil to keep family together and get her children educated. Sanchez spends working hours searching for stories illustrating that kind of travail. Focusing on issues of abandonment and neglect, he…

During the 1960s, Dorothy Rich used paper cartons, tables, lamps, chairs, electric bills, and other paraphernalia of home life to construct "recipes" to help parents prepare their kids for achieving academic success. Rich's contemporary MegaSkills training program, developed at the Home and School Institute, is highly regarded. (MLH)

Profiles James Comer's success at directing the Yale Child Study Center and implementing the School Development Project in predominantly black, low-income school districts. Today, a training program called the Comer Project for Change in Education is operating in more than 600 schools in 82 districts and 26 states. Comer's proudest achievement is…