Educational changes in the form of curriculum development are needed in response to post-industrial socioeconomic shifts that have created a legacy of future problems for today's students. "A new general education" must prepare youth to cope with societal issues and define values for a humane world. Educators should consider futurists'…

This booklet consists of four papers by separate authors that show how the Dutch National Institute for Curriculum Development (SLO) tries to improve the quality of education through curriculum research and development. The first text, by Johan C. van Bruggen, provides a general introduction to SLO, showing how it generates curriculum knowledge…

Dependence on standardized tests in adult literacy programs derives partly from their relative ease of adminstration and their appearance of providing valid and reliable quantitative data for program evaluation. Few adult educators are satisfied with the quality of the information, and most are extremely dissatisfied with the effects of such…

Elementary education in Malta is briefly discussed in terms of: (1) recent innovative developments; (2) Malta's education system; and (3) areas of innovation in primary schools. Section 1 concerns compulsory education and special education in primary schools. Section 2 discusses the expansion of kindergarten education and the organizational…

A developmentally appropriate creative writing program for kindergarten children that included peer interaction and teacher-student discussion was studied to ascertain whether program participants would attain significantly higher oral language scores than did nonparticipants. The writing program was implemented in one of two half-day kindergarten…

This paper provides responses to questions which address the effectiveness of California's instructional program and possible strategies for its improvement. The text mentions several topics including "excellence for all"; the needs of a "demographically changing student population"; James Coleman's notion that public schools…

This report synthesizes findings of a survey of vocational training measures for women in the nine countries of the Western European community. In the first section, some basic figures are presented on numbers of innovative measures, proportion of women gainfully employed, distribution of employed women among economic sectors, and persons…

This study examined the characteristics of school systems and programs that have been successfully involved in change over the past 10 years and that are continuing to update services through external sources. Four models of innovation are outlined: the traditional research-development and utilization (RDU) model, the Linkage Model (Havelock…

Expressed concerns about competency-based education implementation by vocational teachers in six school divisions in Virginia were monitored from April 1983 to April 1984 during the last two years of a movement to statewide competency-based education implementation. At six-month intervals--in April and October 1983 and April 1984--vocational…

Change processes at the school building level are considered in order to formulate a number of locally based strategies, derived from research, for significantly improving schools and classrooms. Part I of the three-part analysis examines, through illustration, what is known about successful change processes at the school and classroom levels.…

Although education, as an activity mandated, sponsored, and supervised by the capitalist state, is as much an apparatus of the state as any other state agency, it is far more democratic, open to change and innovation, and subject to potential community control than any other state apparatus. To understand education's function in a capitalist…

This booklet describes the activities and services of the Community Colleges for International Development, Inc., a cooperative of nine community colleges which seeks to provide for the internationalization of the curriculum; promote the personal/professional enrichment of faculty, staff, and students; promote international educational linkages;…

A study of the effect of implementing educational innovations in local schools across the country explored several factors affecting successful improvement. This paper provides a general overview of the interrelation among these factors, with illustrative diagrams. Particular attention is paid to innovations requiring major changes in teacher…

The Wisconsin Rural Reading Improvement Project implements a research-based telecommunications model of professional development and school improvement that rural school districts can use when redesigning K-12 reading curriculum. The project's approach to staff development assumes that change in school reading programs proceeds via extensive…

This ethnographic study of mandated innovation in an urban school district analyzed teachers' emerging perspectives of curricular and concomitant administrative change. It responds to recent calls in educational research for studies that add to the understanding of the complicated processes in school worlds. Specifically, the study investigated…