Describes school libraries in Australia. Highlights include the title of teacher librarian and their education; the history of the role of school libraries in Australian education; empowerment; information skills and benchmarks; national standards for school libraries; information literacy; learning outcomes; evidence-based practice; digital…

Development of voluntary, national standards as the basis for educational reform has generated considerable debate about such standards' desirability and the enlarged federal role in education. Examines arguments for and against national standards; assumptions and misconceptions underlying this approach; political considerations; and issues of…

Maintains that the multiage primary school approach is rapidly gaining advocates across the nation. Asserts that the thematic approach used in the National Council for the Social Studies national standards provides a structure for this curriculum schema. Discusses teachers' concerns about curriculum change and strengths of the nongraded primary…

Reports on interviews with three music educators about interdisciplinary teaching methods. Asserts that students' musical curiosity must be satisfied to help create well-rounded musicians. Includes a teaching example demonstrating the three basic physical characteristics of sound. (CFR)

This article describes the involvement of the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Children with Communication Disorders in a multiorganizational project to develop a list of statements of needed knowledge and skills for all beginning teachers of students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. The list of statements is appended. (DB)

Examines opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards, which define conditions that schools, districts, and states must meet to ensure students an equal education. Offers an explanation of the states' historical inability to influence equal education, and proposes principles for designing new state policies. Includes recommendations to the states for…

Empirical evidence concerning the promise of setting national standards for school improvement is assembled. From this evidence, it is predicted that standards will not lead to the standardization of educational practice, stifled creativity, or minority-student endangerment. Benefits, which are less easily predicted, will depend on the quality of…

Presents the proposals to improve workforce preparation from the report "America's Choice": (1) require attainment of high national standards of educational performance; (2) create learning environment that ensures this attainment; (3) establish professional certifications for non-college bound persons; (4) have employers allocate 1 percent of…

A survey of 834 teacher educators regarding ideal and actual practicability of each of the 18 new National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards. Subjects considered the standards workable guidelines for quality teacher preparation, ranked four of five NCATE categories as equally important, and recognized the need for…

The National Association of Secondary School Principals and the American School Counselor Association concur that a school-counseling program's success requires capitalizing on counselors' training, expertise, and ability to deliver a program that contributes significantly to the school's mission and supports expectations of new standards and…

Describes the creation and implementation of voluntary standards and benchmarks for the teaching and learning of economics at the precollege level. The standards, established by the National Council on Economic Education in 1997, outline fundamental economic concepts to be taught at each grade level. Includes copies of the standards. (MJP)

Suggests that the claims of advocates of centralized standards and universal testing of schools must be questioned and that alternatives to testing should be considered for the educational output of schools. Argues that supporters have failed to consider the costs of national essay-type tests and the inherent problems of test reliability. (MJP)

Our national focus on school improvement and its relationship to employment is too narrow for American Indian education. School reform strategies must address the linguistic and sociocultural uniqueness of American Indian learners. Native communities and tribes must partner with schools, guiding education from an Indian perspective and creating a…

Reviews the results of descriptive and experimental studies concerning comprehensive musicianship in public school rehearsal class settings. Focuses on 25 studies within three categories: (1) research on student achievement and attitudes; (2) research on teaching practices; and (3) research on teaching materials, teacher beliefs, and teacher…

The particulate nature of matter is identified in science education standards as one of the fundamental concepts that students should understand at the middle school level. However, science education research in indicates that secondary school students have difficulties understanding the structure of matter. The purpose of the study is to describe…