"Making good things better" was the theme of the 1985 AASA Small School District Administrators' Conference. The keynote speaker listed four efforts school leadership should take: encouraging people to change, accelerating the growth of people, setting organizational goals, and continuing personal growth. A full day of the conference focused on…

A 1984 study of the Seattle Public Schools evaluates the relationship between curriculum practices and academic achievement. The study focused on mathematics curriculum and gathered data through survey questionnaires of elementary, middle, and high school level teachers. Three instruments were used: a school assessment questionnaire, a mathematics…

A study examined the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a curriculum designed to teach 60 college level developmental reading students to use microcomputers (Apple) as learning tools and to improve their content area reading ability. The textbook from a biology course in which all but three of the subjects were enrolled was the source for…

Concerns about the way in which European secondary school curriculum may respond to social and technical change and the needs of the individual and society are addressed in this paper. One way to do this to through multicultural education. Six curricular strategies are identified as responses to the technological changes and six strategies address…

Because communication has been determined to be an essential part of all subject areas, not just English classes, this curriculum guide recommends a method for integrating communication across the curriculum in Saskatchewan (Canada) schools, from kindergarten to grade 12. The introduction defines communication skills as essential learning in…

In the British post-colonial era, instruction in English as a second language has developed stronger ties to the field of applied linguistics than to education. Both British and foreign instructors have been trained in linguistic rather than educational theory and practice. One result has been a cadre of specialists not fully prepared for jobs in…

Two exploratory studies examined Peru's elementary reading programs. The first looked at reading curriculum, texts, and teachers; the second, at students' reading ability. In Peru performance goals are not specified for each grade by the reading curriculum nor are specific instructional materials recommended (reading is not considered a separate…

To assist in the process of improving writing instruction, a study assessed the status of writing in the District of Columbia Public Schools. The study consisted of four components: a teacher survey; a student survey; principal interviews; and a curriculum assessment. The teacher survey was administered to 897 teachers in 34 schools and the…

The adoption by Seattle (Washington) Public Schools of the Prescriptive Reading Inventory Reading System (PRI-RS) was a decision driven by the district's commitment to effective schooling. The PRI-RS is a criterion referenced approach to the instruction and assessment of reading skills, and it consists of five levels, A through E, coordinated with…

Prepared as part of the program review process at California's Coastline Community College (CCC), this report describes and evaluates CCC's English Department, highlighting problems and successes from 1976 to 1987. Part I offers a narrative account of: (1) the changes that took place in the department between 1976 and 1987, focusing on early…

After using the "Physics: A Human Endeavor" curriculum for a period of time students and teachers in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, in general, suggested that there was a need for a curriculum change. This paper reports on ways to effectively change the curriculum. Topics included are: (1) need for change in the…

This is one of a series of reports which provide definitions of and descriptive data on the variables used in the Comparative Study of Phase IV of the Individually Guided Education (IEG) Evaluation Project. Phase IV investigated three curriculum programs specifically designed to be compatible with instructional programming for the individual…

At the request of the Curriculum Department and the Chapter I program coordinators of the Portland Public Schools, three different instructional programs were evaluated during the 1981-82 school year. (1) The Help One Student to Succeed (HOSTS) program provided a person-to-person structured tutorial program in reading using volunteer tutors. (2)…

Within the evaluation of a curriculum program for student teachers, the curriculum as an influencing factor in the effects of the teaching-learning process was investigated. Qualitative and quantitative research models were used. The Look and Listen I (LLI) program was the subject of the study. It is an individualized program to instruct student…

A study was conducted: (1) to determine the proportion of average 6th-grade students who, when given prompts, could produce an incipient form of dialectical reasoning; and (2) to test a unit of instruction developed to teach dialectical reasoning as an appropriate learning strategy for exploring public controversies. It was hypothesized that if…