Three fundamental changes in state focus are needed to improve urban education and prepare many more students to participate in society and the world. First, state boards of education must act upon the belief that all children can learn. Urban students need rigorous, top-quality curricula and instruction delivered by highly trained and competent…

The construction of objective tests for native language reading comprehension is described. The tests were designed for the early secondary school years in several kinds of schools, vocational and non-vocational. The description focuses on the use of the Rasch model in test development, to develop a large pool of homogenous items and establish…

This paper suggests that students' opportunities to learn may be stratified both between and within schools. Schools serving a more affluent and able clientele may offer more rigorous and enriched programs of study, and students in college preparatory curricular programs may have greater access to advanced courses within schools. This notion is…

A variety of methods can be used for instructing classes having highly heterogeneous students, including individualization of instruction, homogeneous grouping, team teaching, and modifying whole-class instruction. Through classroom observations and teacher interviews, the prevalence of such methods in 32 second- and third-grade classrooms were…

This study determined if overall mathematics performance of male and female students was: (1) different within each of six content areas; (2) differentially affected by ability grouping within each of the six content areas; and (3) differentially affected by the combination of ability grouping and grade level within each of the six content areas.…

Cooperative learning and heterogeneous ability grouping meet many of the goals of middle grade education while avoiding the discriminatory effects of tracking and homogeneous grouping. Poor and minority students are overrepresented in lower track classes, and are, therefore, more likely to be denied equal access to education. Arguments in favor of…

This book is intended for researchers and teachers interested in literacy and concerned about classrooms as a context for literacy activity and learning. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "What It Means to be Literate about Classrooms" (Lyn Corno); (2) "Beyond Access: An Ethnographic Study of Reading and Writing in a…

The use of motor ability tests to achieve sex-fair ability groups should be considered from three standpoints--task specificity, sex differences, and individual learning differences. Motor ability is frequently described as an individual's present ability to perform motor skills. Although several motor ability tests have been constructed for…

An examination of any school curriculum would reveal the existence of "basic" subjects such as reading, writing, and computation. Therefore a "return to basics" is not needed but rather a change in methodology in teaching these subjects. The following methodological changes are suggested: (1) Test each child to ascertain the level of achievement…

A review of the basic information on intelligence testing as a schooling practice is presented, including a discussion of what intelligence is and three psychological approaches to studying intelligence (psychometric, behavioristic, and developmental). All intelligence tests derived from the psychometric approach are standardized and…

THIS STUDY OF THE ILLINOIS STATE-WIDE CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER IN THE PREPARATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHERS (ISCPET) WAS DESIGNED TO DETERMINE THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN GRADES 10, 11, AND 12 OF ILLINOIS SCHOOLS. IN THE SUMMER OF 1965, 500 QUESTIONNAIRES WERE SENT TO MEMBERS OF THE ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS…

A study was conducted to identify types of mental operations of 4- and 5-year-olds and to relate them to the child's age and the educational level of the mother. The sample consisted of 423 white English-speaking children of American parentage, evenly divided by sex and as evenly distributed as possible over the 12-month-age range of 4 to 5 years.…

The use of group approval as a social reinforcer and related methods in group presentation of programed instruction were investigated in a series of studies. The efficacy of programed instructional materials is frequently limited by their inability to command and maintain adequate attention and motivation. To consider social reinforcement effects…

This article appraises the decision of Judge J. Skelly Wright in the "Hobsen v. Hansen" litigation invalidating de facto segregation in the schools in Washington, D.C. The "finding of fact" section of the decision attacked as discriminatory the schools' track system, the racial distribution of faculty, and the utilization of…

To determine comparative achievement of Title I pupils from 1966 through 1968, as measured by composite scores on the Iowa Testing Program, basic skills data were analyzed for 1,794 pupils on a two-grade span at the elementary level (grades 3-5 and 4-6) and educational development data were analyzed for 1,203 pupils on a two-grade span at the…