Describes the benefits of a correspondence project between 10th-grade remedial English students and preservice education teachers in terms of personal attention, self-esteem, and interest in reading and learning. (TB)

Investigates beliefs of four teachers of at-risk students. Discusses possible school failure and future high poverty communities as related to the students' family backgrounds. Identifies child abuse in the home, alcoholism, and single or absent parents as most frequent contributors to at-risk student behavior. (CMK)

Discusses four educational methods designed to deal with the risk of kindergarten failure. Methods include increased provision of prekindergarten programs; adoption of a later school entrance age; a developmental placement system; and a continuous progress plan with multi-age groupings. (BB)

The academic performance of 86 mainstreamed learning-disabled students was compared with that of 87 low-achieving students. Significant differences were found between the groups' grades in social studies and health but not in science. Of intelligence quotient, reading level, and absence rates, only absence rates differentiated between ninth grade…

Cites studies linking teachers' expectations of students to students' performance. Expectations especially affect American Indian students as smallest and poorest of minorities. Defines good teachers as having positive belief systems and practices and offering students cheer and encouragement. Includes suggestions, anecdotal material. (TES)

Discusses reasons for failure in open learning, describes areas that can adversely affect student performance, and suggests possible corrective actions. Highlights include validation, or developmental testing, of courseware; the climate for learning; the role of local instructors; consequences of success or failure; course design; learning style…

Argues that the promulgation of guidelines, used in directing early childhood education and based on universalist assumptions, places racial, ethnic, and linguistic "minority" children and parents at a disadvantage and contributes to the very processes that early childhood educators seek to remedy. It concludes that poor scholastic performance is…

Examines the way in which integration or mainstreaming policies in Australia have been subverted by labeling disruptive young people as defective and by deploying the practices and culture of disability as a means of imposing social control on such students. Suggestions are given for reframing the issue of school failure as interactional rather…

Explores the economic and cultural reasons why apprenticeship programs imported by developing countries typically fail. Addresses experiences in Western Africa and draws on the outcomes of programs in industrialized countries. Supports programs that improve educational systems incrementally and cautions against programs that run counter to the…

Provides for those involved in retaining a child a concise, cumulative report of recent literature and research on elementary grade retention. Most research indicated that elementary school level retention does not effectively increase academic achievement among low-achieving students. Research-based decision making on this issue is a must. (RJM)

Reports on the second year of a supplementary reading program. Notes the program was successful with nonreading or delayed-reading students from regular and special education classrooms in grades one through eight. Argues that labels such as at-risk, learning disabled, and dyslexic are excuses for not initially teaching children how to read. (SR)

Examines why a literature-based multicultural curriculum failed to engage students from a predominately white, working-class middle school in the South in discussing racism. Results from an ethnographic study indicate that this failure was primarily the result of dominant mainstream beliefs embedded in the institution of schooling and in the…

The good news about U.S. schools (improved Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and international achievement rankings) continues to be ignored, while the bad news about the nation's real problems (crushing poverty, crumbling cities, and a faltering economy) worsens. A system that formerly functioned as a sorting machine is now expected to optimize all…

Reviews the origins and development of the 20th-century term "drop-out." Asserts that the social construction of the drop-out problem explicitly marks the time when secondary education became a common expectation in the United States. Contends that secondary education's success created the concept of a drop-out "problem." (CFR)

Investigated emotional and facial expressivity in infants who failed to thrive and normal infants who were videotaped in social and cognitive contexts. Although differences in emotional expressivity were not found, infants who failed to thrive displayed more negative effects and used their lower faces less often to express emotion. (Author/BB)