The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) has made it possible to develop comprehensive profiles of the nation's public and private schools and teachers and principals and to study issues of teacher supply and demand. The planned switch to a 5-year cycle of data collection provides a good time to re-examine the survey's design. This paper focuses on…

This booklet reports the findings of a study that focused on the well-being and lifestyle of 479 families of children (ages 2-17) with Down syndrome (DS) in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. A comparative study of families of typical children in the Nordic countries was also done. The results of the study indicate that bringing up a…

The psychometric research done by G. Rasch between 1951 and 1959, which is explained and illustrated in this book, takes psychometrics from being purely descriptive to being a science of objective measurement. Individual centered statistics require models in which each individual is characterized separately and from which, given adequate data,…

This videotape contains a series of presentations by Benjamin D. Wright of the University of Chicago about the Rasch model and measurement in testing. The first presentation is excerpts from a workshop held in 1974 for educators from the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools and the Oregon Department of Education. Dr. Wright's lectures were part of a…

A study involving eight boys with autism and eight boys with Down syndrome (ages 6-10) with similar adaptive behavior levels used an ecological approach to study the in-depth structure of the behavior stream. Narrative records were collected and analyzed based on duration and frequency of behaviors. Each record was analyzed by marking the behavior…

College radio is quite often viewed as the true alternative to commercial radio. However, what is alternative radio and how does college radio factor into the ideal? To further understand this concept, this paper focuses on the role of alternative programming in college radio. Areas discussed include alternative radio as a non-mainstream form of…

This book presents 15 essays that consider writing development from many different angles, creating a collage that focuses on how to help students develop into competent writers. The first section of the book consists of four chapters on how to support young writers. In the second section, the essays explore how a variety of issues influence…

This book addresses reading issues pertaining to college students at all levels, and is envisioned as an essay collection of interest to educators involved with college reading, as well as those in other disciplines. Section 1 (Perspectives) presents 4 essays, which describe how college readers perceive reading and writing: "'Josh': Case…

This book is designed to help teachers choose literature and create instructional materials for use with elementary and middle school students. The book offers teachers a number of instructional ideas to work with and to introduce them to children's texts that should be welcome in the classroom--some of this literature will be familiar to…

Issues-centered curriculum is an anomaly within the social studies classroom, most often overshadowed by the dominant framework that includes teacher-centered, textbook-driven, subject-focused lessons. An instructor of social studies methods chose to break with the content-dominant tradition and introduce issues-centered social studies to the…

Current articles on the power and influence of children's literature on primary children's literacy development and achievement were reviewed. Research indicates that literature has a positive effect on the academic achievement of children and that literacy skills are essential components of academic success. Children who have been exposed to…

Drawing on the literature and a survey of first-grade teachers, this paper provides a summary of the ways children grieve, children's ideas on death, ways to help children contend with the difficulties surrounding death, and teachers' feelings about discussing death in the classroom. Twelve teachers completed a questionnaire about how to…

This booklet provides short treatment options for educators, counselors and others on grief issues that today's youth often face. Children may encounter the trauma of fatal illness, accidents, suicide, homicide, and terrorism that they experience either directly or indirectly through the media. They can also face abuse, divorce, multiple moves,…

This study focuses on how teachers are responding to changes in the new global history curriculum and the attendant tenth grade New York Regents examination. It compares the messages broadcast by the new state curriculum and assessment policies with individual interview data collected from ninth and tenth grade New York state global history…

The British National Curriculum suggests that a range of thinking skills need to be taught. But can children be taught to think? This paper takes the view that all thinking is embedded in a particular context. It gives an account of its author/educators' work with children, draws attention to distinctive features of their approach to teaching, and…