A Pennsylvania school board member says that outcome-based education provides the context within which teachers can lead students to imaginative thinking and critical reasoning, whereas the traditional approach to education relies on memorization rather than thinking and analysis. (MLF)

Underscores the need for change in contemporary Hong Kong education and factors making change problematic, including the power of local business elites, teachers, and parents in the educational system; British colonial educational philosophy and responsibility; and the nature and educational attitudes of Hong Kong society. (DMM)

Huge changes are taking place throughout the former East German society. Comments from students, teachers, and administrators at Potsdam's William and Alexander Humboldt High School, just outside Berlin, highlight the difficult tasks involved in reforming an impoverished and repressive school system. (MLF)

Notes that issues in academia are inadequately represented in journalism. Urges academics who write about culture to write for the broad audience of the college educated. Maintains that, to do so, cultural critics must use appropriate language and tone and reconsider whether academic journals are really the only outlet for their work. (SR)

Because many key decisions affecting education's future will be made in the political arena, principals must become more politically involved and acquire the necessary skills to influence policy outcomes. To prepare for the public debate, principals must recognize that the present political culture favors open market competition, articulate a…

A high school teacher describes efforts to develop a comprehensive gifted education program while recognizing political realities. The program emphasized use of before-school and after-school periods rather than pull-out, addressed the burdens rather than blessings of high capability, focused on the underachieving gifted, and tried to avoid…

Asks whether a public school superintendent should support school choice. Answers that properly structured choice programs, although not a panacea, could improve educational equity and outcomes and deserve a fair chance. (SR)

Promotes and describes the notion of "charter schools" that would be organized by any qualified party, recognized by the state, and open to all comers. (SR)

Reviews recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on school choice. Finds little doubt as to the basic constitutionality of a properly designed choice program. (SR)

Reviews arguments and experiences with school choice. Raises some strong cautions about the implementation of choice programs, questioning whether enhanced parental choice would cure the ills of the public school system. (SR)

Identifies two factors that contribute to the recycling of deficit pedagogy in programs targeted for marginalized students: traditional, technocratic definitions of literacy; and "uncritical dysconsciousness" (the acceptance of culturally sanctioned beliefs that, regardless of good intentions, defend the advantages of insiders and the…

School executives should learn the value of effective spin control. Politically savvy principals and superintendents keep their public-relations message simple, consider emotional appeal, repeat the message constantly, play up schools' inclusiveness as a strength, pay attention to forming both questions and answers, discredit negative messengers,…

Community education embodies Dewey's claim that educational theories must be derived from a moral theory of people as citizens. Community education must be a theory and practice of politics as well as of education. (SK)

Presents three related metaphors for understanding the relations among rhetoric, social forms, and social processes (and thus among text, context, and culture): contemporary America as empire, empire's concern with feeding, and empire's feeding habits as pornography. (SR)

Responds to several essays in the same journal issue. Suggests distinct yet equally important roles of theory and lived experience, concepts, and materiality in speech communication research. Argues for an engaged scholarly attitude that views the self as relational, others' accounts as valid, research as self-critical, and judgment as a…