If education is to halt the ever-swinging pendulum and make significant progress in student achievement, it must first change the ground rules for selecting, implementing, evaluating, and institutionalizing innovations like Hunter's model. This article proposes steps for providing an infrastructure capable of promoting lasting and beneficial…

"People's education" in China is rooted in the mass education movement lasting from the 1920s to the 1940s. This article summarizes the Chinese educational system from 1949 to present-day reform efforts. Traditional spoon-feeding and rote learning must yield to a system encouraging sef-understanding and independent, innovative, and…

Proponents of Perestroika" and "glasnost" are tirelessly seeking to remold Soviet teaching and learning. Innovations and "corrections" are being fed by numerous articles in professional journals and by pedagogical leaders in academies and universities. Teaching in Soviet classrooms remains a teacher-centered, one-way…

Reunited Germany is facing an intricate network of social, economic, and political problems. It will take at least a generation of students to adapt to the new Western system espousing freedom of choice, self-motivation, equal opportunity, and critical awareness. Standards of the former West Germany are endangered by changing social attitudes,…

Because they are not guided by an overall goal based on scientific theory, the six national education goals are fragmentary, contradictory, and insufficiently concerned about developing student autonomy--education's true aim. Teachers can help children develop autonomy by encouraging them to make decisions and enforce their own rules, fostering…

Since 1988, the Jose Valdes Summer Math Institutes have helped some 4,800 (mostly minority) students get a running start on their high school careers. The program consists of four main elements: intensive math instruction for students, training for teachers, parent education, and a student support program. (MLH)

Although Hungary's 1989 political transformation gave new credibility to existing policies, it did not necessarily translate into an understanding of participatory decision making or enthusiasm for school reform. Beyond the rhetoric are two dramatic curricular alterations: removal of the Marxist ideology infusing each discipline and elimination of…

Educational portfolios can happen, even within extremely incompatible organizational structures. When designed in accordance with four principles (opportunities for meaning-making, interactions with people who matter, assemblage over an extended period, and a supportive presentation context) these projects can be transformative and profoundly…

In this article, the author offers a new vision of assessment that has the potential of bringing about remarkable gains in student achievement. The time has come to take advantage of the new understanding of the potential of assessment and to fundamentally rethink the relationship between assessment practices and effective schools in the United…

Whether by incorporating the study of other nations and cultures into the school curriculum, requiring students to learn foreign languages, or encouraging cross-cultural exchanges, countries around the world are preparing their students for life in the global era. Vivien Stewart describes efforts in Europe, Australia, and Asia and assesses how the…

Describes a model career education program at Dallas' Skyline Career Development Center where students receive a balance of academic and occupational education leading to a career. (DW)

A longer version of this article was presented at the convention of the American Educational Research Association (Los Angeles, February 5-8, 1969).

Half of all 16,023 U.S. school districts are both small and rural. In a decade of nationwide reform, these "forgotten" school districts must fight for survival rather than substantive reform. Teachers in rural Indiana cannot rely on principals for instructional leadership nor on each other for professional enrichment. Includes four…

Educational reform could be stunted if questionable staffing practices (emergency certificates, misassignment of teachers, and alternative routes to certification) continue and become more prevalent due to the predicted teacher shortages. Outlines the National Education Association's six-point program and the American Federation of Teacher's…

Fictional account of changes in educational technology between 1985 and 2005. Focuses on appropriate uses for and teaching about computers, the need for developing thinking skills in students, and the need for developing policies regarding educating for an age of biotechnology. (PGD)