Portfolios, demonstrations, exhibitions, displays, and video attestations all challenge traditional test theory, which is focused on individuals in isolation. However, teachers are expected to work collaboratively and resolve problems within a social context. Instead of limiting collaboration when evaluating a teacher's site-based portfolio,…

Although some small liberal arts colleges feature developmentally appropriate programs, most postsecondary institutions are more like factories that process students. This article describes limitations of the current college-admissions model and discusses the need to create common expectations and develop performance-based admission standards…

Profiles three school/university partnerships in Toronto, southern Maine, and West Virginia committed to systemic reform of teacher education. Examines the development of processes and structures for building professionalism among educators, learning modes for practicing educators, and the types of working environments involved. Highlights both…

Communication is the key to success and a stumbling block to pursuit of information-literate population. Many library media specialists and teachers withdraw from larger professional concerns and concentrate on resolving locally pressing problems. Societal factors also hinder the integration of library skills into the curriculum. Politics and…

In trying to insulate school boards from city politics and political parties, early reformers severed board connections with other service providers. Today, worsening conditions for children and their families require "undoing" these reforms and transforming the board's role. Playing a smaller role in some executive, judicial, and…

The Middle School Initiative, an ambitious plan to convert all New York City junior high schools to middle schools, faced numerous obstacles: loss of leadership support, teacher cynicism and resistance, blindness to difficulties, union regulations, pressures for quick results, administrator retirement incentives, and collaboration problems. (MLH)

Adults participating in a Los Angeles "school family" network will be engaged for the next several years in the Annenberg Challenge--a national reform initiative aimed at improving student performance. Participation offers opportunities to develop a coherent K-12 education plan, access extra resources, and pursue collaborative…

In this article, the author argues that small high schools offer the kinds of environments needed to try out some of newer ideas in school redesign. The author also argues that states and districts should pay attention to what these new institutions are making possible.

Competition, in classrooms as on the athletic fields, could destroy childhood and distort an entire lifetime. In an educational institution there is no need for grading, promotion, ranking, tracking, or labeling. A tremendous burden would be removed if teachers could teach without "evaluation," if people would come to school to learn rather than…

Reports the positive initial assessment of California's attempt to encourage individual elementary schools to assess the needs of their children, to plan appropriate instructional settings, and to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts. (Author/IRT)

Teachers can gain strength to continue in their profession by consciously forging links--personal, parental, professional, promotional, and practitioner--that bind them to various constituencies. (MLF)

Teachers at Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington, are joined by the parents of high school students in the production of elaborate annual shows that both create a sense of community and raise approximately $10,000 a year for the school. (PGD)

The Colorado School of Mines and the Cherry Creek (Colorado) School District cooperate in a program using engineering students as part-time instructional technicians in mathematics and science for the district. The program provides role models and highly trained support personnel for district students, and helps recruit teachers. (PGD)

School boards epitomize the U.S. tradition of representative local government. A 1992 National School Boards Association statement recognizes four major school board functions: envisioning a community's future educational program, establishing facilitative organizational structures and community environments, ensuring performance assessment…

Criticizes Evans Clinchy's lead article in the June 1994 "Kappan" ("Higher Education: The Albatross around the Neck of Our Public Schools") for setting up an adversarial relationship between universities and public schools that is overdrawn, overblown, and distorted. Clinchy is misinformed about universities' practice-teaching…