For decades, education researchers have been drawing attention to the importance of professional collaboration among teachers as a way to improve student achievement. But not all collaboration is equally effective. Andy Hargreaves and Michael O'Connor explain that the most successful and sustainable efforts are characterized by both solidity and…

All versions of top-down reform have an Achilles heel: Their focus on delivering the details of two or three measurable priorities is suitable only for systems pursuing traditional and comparatively narrow achievement goals. A digital age of complex skills, cultural diversity, and high-speed change calls for more challenging educational goals and…

Beyond learning how to manage children in a classroom, new teachers also must learn how to manage relationships with the adults in their school. Every new employee must be socialized into membership of their new work organization. In the case of teachers, that's the school and the district. In a study of beginning teachers in Flanders, the…

School-to-school partnerships can be enormously rewarding for staff and students in U.S. districts and in American schools overseas. Cooperative projects bring cultures closer together and narrow the gap between U.S. society and the lives of people in foreign countries. (MLH)

Mexico and the United States have reached a number of agreements designed to improve the literacy and education of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Programs offered by the Mexican government are continuing to expand because of scarce funding for education in the United States. The Program for Mexican Communities Abroad supplies Mexican…

Although a recent conference in Neusiedl-am-See, Austria, and others like it have encouraged the development through national education systems of an awareness of European cultural identity and "active cooperation and communication among Europeans," the realization of such a project remains largely to be accomplished. (JBM)

Describes how two secondary schools implemented the six basic elements of personalized instruction: The Thomas Haney Secondary Centre in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School in Devens, Massachusetts. (Contains 14 references.) (PKP)

Offers an update on global education programs from around the world, in the hope that American educators will seek dialogue with their international peers. (Author/MLF)

Two assessment agencies, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the U.S. and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), provide the most promising framework for comparing U.S. education with education in other nations. These agencies can cooperate to resolve technical issues and make data…

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…

In their widely read article "Inside the Black Box," the authors demonstrated that improving formative assessment raises student achievement. Now in this article, they and their colleagues report on a follow-up project that has helped teachers change their practice and students change their behavior so that everyone shares responsibility…

Nicaragua's National Literacy Crusade of 1980 has brought impressive results. Through a mass mobilization effort, people of all ages served in 60,000 Sandinista Literacy Units; those who read taught those who could not. This article describes the program's implementation and outcomes. (Author/WD)

High schools and teacher training institutions in the United States exhibit different characteristics than those exhibited by similar schools in other countries. These differences are rooted in America's history and help explain why secondary education and higher education in America are not coordinated in ways that consistently promote…