Evaluations of the "Long-Range Magnet School Plan" court-ordered desegregation program occur in 3 year cycles. This report evaluates the programs of three Science and Mathematics Magnet Middle Schools in operation in Kansas City, Missouri. After presenting a program description and evaluation design, enrollment and achievement trends at…

This report describes significant changes which have taken place in the public schools of Jefferson County, Colorado, and discusses issues which affect the quality of education in the county's school district. After a brief introduction, the report profiles the Jefferson County Public School District, presents information about the county's public…

Designed to aid middle school-aged students to understand better the problems illegal drugs pose for schools, and to provide students with an opportunity to come up with solutions, this illustrated curriculum guide helps students examine the problem of drugs in an imaginary school called Jackson Middle School. Students are asked to work with other…

This teaching guide accompanies a curriculum, intended to be used in the middle school grades, that introduces students to the study of constitutional government in the United States. It is designed to help students understand the most important ideas of the constitutional system and how they were developed, and to provide students with a…

In light of recent calls by educational organizations to abolish tracking because of its role in perpetuating inequities in achievement among racial and ethnic groups, this digest looks at current school detracking efforts. An initial section reviews the extent and reasons for tracking and the concerns raised when detracking is proposed, noting…

The Practitioner Center, an innovation which provides a vehicle for a transactional approach to teacher growth and professional development, incorporates the concept of peer leadership with "teachers teaching teachers" and teachers acting as coaches. The organizers of the practitioner center decided on a 5-part format which is covered in…

As part of the school improvement process, the Springfield Public School (Massachusetts) has involved all constituencies in the community in implementing the Schools of Choice plan. This guidebook was prepared to assist parents and students in determining the best program and schools for their needs and desires. Parents of elementary school…

This study was undertaken to obtain descriptive information about teachers' perceptions of effective classroom management within an inner-city middle school. Thirteen teachers in one such school in Tennessee were interviewed about their classroom management behaviors. Teachers appeared to have an elaborate system of beliefs related to the themes…

Cooperative learning, as it was constructed in three seventh-grade classrooms in a multi-ethnic middle school, was examined as part of a dissertation study that focused on cooperative learning as embedded in its sociocultural context. Data were gathered using ethnographic methods, including participant and nonparticipant observations, document…

Designed for music educators instructing grades 4 through 8 in string instruments, this Mesa (Arizona) public schools guide presents information on the string curriculum, orchestras, and practicing. The goals and objectives for string instruments delineate grade levels and how student skills will be verified. Following 17 curriculum goal tests,…

In educational and training environments, teachers assign their students independent research tasks that require locating, gathering, synthesizing, and summarizing information from one or more information resources containing large, and sometimes overwhelming, amounts of information. This study explored the information location and use activities,…

A study was designed to describe how middle school students select, link, and determine relationships between textual and visual information. Fourteen authoring groups were formed from both eighth-grade earth science classes of one veteran teacher in one school. Each group was challenged to produce an informative interactive laservideodisc project…

An innovative, flexible scheduling technique for advanced levels of a foreign language program is described. The technique, predicated on individualized pacing and continuous progress, is generalizable to all elective programs, and offers a workable solution to satisfy the enrollment "numbers game" and to lend breadth and depth to the curricula of…

Designed to provide teaching materials for middle school and junior high school teachers in northern New England, this marine education unit presents teacher-tested ideas and activities for use in the classroom and in field trips to the shore. Each unit includes ideas and activities drawn from a variety of content areas so that teachers of many…

This unit, one of six which comprise the Fair Play program, allows middle school students to compare and analyze male and female language. The Fair Play program is a series of student and teacher materials the purpose of which is to help students expand their female or male self-concepts, increase their decision-making skills, and improve their…