The structures, organizations, and reward systems required to sustain universities, their faculty, and their students preclude genuine restructuring of schools of education. One promising reform path is school-based teacher education, which locates the primary faculty expertise, curriculum-development responsibility, and budget authority in school…

Since its inception in 1994, the Michigan Educators' Exchange Opportunities Program has allowed nearly 300 K-12 educators to spend approximately 2 1/2 weeks in one of over a dozen countries. Michigan teachers stay in the homes of foreign colleagues and vice versa. This reciprocity benefits Michigan teachers and students. (MLH)

Positive Peer Groups (PPG) is a leadership training program that helps alienated and disengaged students bond to school via participation in school-oriented service activities stressing work, discipline, and responsibility. Students form affiliations with peers involved in the same efforts. Results in Ohio schools are encouraging. (MLH)

The director of the Chicago Academy for School Leadership addresses the kind of leadership that would have kept her, a former English teacher, from failing a struggling African-American student 30 years ago. A culture of collegial support, mentoring/coaching, results-driven professional development, and instructional leadership would have helped.…

Educational reforms fail because they are usually based on certain myths about training, advocacy, theory, knowledge dissemination, complete restructuring, paradigm shifts, and small-scale studies. These misconceptions result in wasted resources for staff development and dissemination, few professional validation standards, repeat cycles of…

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…

Applies a inside/outside reciprocity metaphor to the top-down/bottom-up combinations required for school reform. Sustained change requires internal change, active connection to the outside community, and a challenging, but nurturing external infrastructure. There is also a fusion of the spiritual, the political, and the intellectual. (Contains 13…

Reviews comparative study of early childhood education policy and services in 12 countries produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Discusses seven major cross-national issues and key elements of successful early childhood education policies. Draws implications for the United States. (Contains 11 references.) (PKP)

Nothing is more important to America's future than teaching children the skills they need to be successful. Every child must receive a quality education if America is to be a prosperous and hopeful country. The rapidly changing global economy is creating new industries that compete for highly skilled workers from around the world, and young people…

To effectively improve minority student achievement in metropolitan schools, educational alternatives based on staff development, administrative leadership, increased resources, reorganized school practices, community resources, and new educational environments must be developed. (Author/DW)

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)

The ideal professor of education (1) values the interrelationships among teaching, scholarship, and professional service and (2) models behavior appropriate to these values. The quality and reputation of colleges of education depend upon the pursuit of this ideal by all faculty. (IW)

An American educator evaluates education experts' current infatuation with the Japanese educational system. She cautions against importing Japan's educational methods to the United States and urges educators to look at the cultural values that produce both systems. She provides thoughtful anecdotes from her experiences visiting Japanese schools to…

Many of the educational reforms being implemented become union issues when they reach the local school district levels. Presents a study of four school districts with such reforms under negotiation. Although administrators proposed the changes, the teachers and their local unions often proved to be constructive participants in those changes.…

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)