Discusses current models of family-professional partnerships and barriers to true collaboration, including turf issues, the nature of trust, expertise differences, and differences in scope of responsibility. Offers recommendations for practice, including questions for self-evaluation. Asserts that as educators change their practice and ways of…

Focuses on the transition of problem children from one child care center to another, when administrators determine that a program can no longer serve that child's needs. Describes four different cases to illustrate the range of behaviors associated with difficult children. Proposes strategies to accomplish successful transitions for these children…

Examines the benefits of exchanging weekly letters among a teacher, first-grade students, and their parents during the school year. The teacher had the opportunity to model letter writing for the children and kept communication open with the parents. Parents were kept informed of their children's performance, and the children were involved in a…

Presents findings from a questionnaire concerning job satisfaction and dissatisfaction that was given to public school teachers of kindergarten through third grade classes in the sunbelt states. Offers recommendations for improving teachers' job satisfaction. (BB)

Focuses on factors that thwart true school-parent partnerships in the development and education of children. Factors include a family's socioeconomic status, democratic issues, the creation of school systems, gender bias against women, teacher priorities, racism, and classism. (Author/BB)

Maintains that parents of a handicapped child, for example, a child with cerebral palsy, are "walking a tightrope." Successful intervention with the disabled child in the classroom is possible only when there is strong teacher-parent communication. This position is illustrated by an account of a parent's personal experience. (BB)

The Home Kit/Home Visit Program--designed for children needing reinforcement of basic concepts and knowledge of colors, shapes, numbers, letter recognition, and letter-sound correspondence--is proving successful in encouraging parent involvement in first-graders' learning of basic skills. Parents are provided with home learning kits to guide their…

Suggests involving parents more fully in their child's reading, by sending books from school to be shared at home. Describes a program that groups several books by theme or author in a backpack, along with a book for parents, a response notebook, and inventory card. Suggests funding sources and management concerns for such a program, and includes…

Examines the similarities between high-quality, fully implemented Montessori programs and other developmentally appropriate programs for young children. Focuses on the Montessori philosophy, human relations within the learning environment, the curriculum, areas of the Montessori classroom, relations between home and program, and the developmental…