Too many students still experience the factory model evident in most U.S. high schools, which were designed to put young people on a conveyor belt and move them from one overloaded teacher to the next, in 45-minute increments, to be stamped with separate, disconnected lessons 7 or 8 times a day. While these factory-model designs may have worked…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) requires learner-centred and interactive teaching strategies such as critical thinking, participatory decision-making, value-based learning, and multi-method approaches, all of which to some degree contrast traditional lecture-based teaching practices. As there is very little evidence providing…

This article investigates the importance of parent and community engagement in curriculum development, along with curriculum leadership, engaging stakeholders, and the importance of curriculum. Parent and community member engagement is examined in light of curriculum committee participation as reported by Missouri superintendents. Survey responses…

When Stephanie Smith became the principal of Seaford (Delaware) Middle School four years ago, she was told to accept the fact that the school would never be able to change its status as a school that needed to improve. She did not accept that. To improve performance levels, she set the expectations high. Her defiance paid off: the school is now…

In this article the author discusses the community school concept and relates it to his own experiences as a student and educator in Missouri. It asserts that in developing a community school, participants in the school district must be willing to give of their talents and time to improve the social environment for all its inhabitants. Cooperation…

The philosophy upon which this monograph is based is the belief that one of the responsibilities of the schools is to prepare all youth to become active and well-informed participants in a democratic society. Alternatives and options are recommended for improving the school curriculum, governance, teacher effectiveness, testing, discipline, and…

This publication provides art educators with a plan for becoming effective advocates for school art programming and management. Chapter 1 is designed to stimulate change in programs that train art educators, to offer practical guidelines and techniques for obtaining operational support for school art programs, and to describe various marketing…

Discusses the importance of community in critical thinking, presenting objectivist and nonobjectivist views of the conduct and teaching of critical thinking. An essential insight for education resulting from the nonobjectivist conception is the development of a commitment to the ethical values of community, democracy, freedom, and equality. (SM)

Although curriculum issues still command reformers' attention, researchers recognize that academic success is tied to home and community support. Alliance for Achievement is a school-community management program that addresses the relationships among schools, homes, and communities based on locally defined and commonly held educational values. The…

Describes the process of building partnerships between Aboriginal communities and the University of Northern British Columbia at the levels of both institutions and persons, focusing on collaborative development of a First Nations Studies curriculum. Argues that overtly participatory methodologies have enhanced the collaborations' success,…

This report describes activities from 1986 through 1990 of the Mastery in Learning Project, which focused on "restructuring the school" and "sharing decision making" at one elementary school in Lewiston, Idaho. Based on need surveys of various constituents of school life (administrators, students, teachers, and parents), a…

The Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study, conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), aims to identify, measure and evaluate the extent to which effective practice in citizenship education develops in schools. The study began in 2001 and will conclude in…

Summarizes a five-month study of a British secondary school governing body to determine whether the 1986 and 1988 education acts' goals were being achieved. One significant research issue was the emerging lay-professional relationship. At present, the school governing body is not fully exercising its powers but is responding to an externally…

At the beginning of his tenure in 1987, the superintendent of Clear Creek School District (Colorado) found that the district had no written K-12 curriculum, no ongoing process for developing such a curriculum, and no systematic process for staff development. To provide for change based on projected student needs for the 21st century, the…

Rural school boards have a unique opportunity to impact education by involving teachers, administrators, and the community in policy development. To make policy an instrument of empowerment, policymakers should consider the following steps: (1) seeking information from any and all groups that the policy will affect to develop a statement about…