Since the early 1980s the health care system in the United States has been radically transformed from one dominated by fee-for-service arrangements to one dominated by managed care. Between 1980 and 2000 the number of Americans enrolled in some form of managed care rose fourteenfold. By that year, an estimated 140 million people were enrolled in health maintenance organizations (HMOs), one form of…
Principal advocate of the nineteenth-century common school movement, Horace Mann became the catalyst for tuition-free public education and established the concept of state-sponsored free schools. The zeal with which Mann executed his plan for free schools was in keeping with the intellectual climate of Boston in the early days of the republic. The Mann contribution, state government sponsored educ…
The master's degree is awarded upon completion of one to two years of advanced graduate study beyond the bachelor's degree, with the length depending on the field of study and the conferring institution. It recognizes heightened expertise in an academic discipline or professional field of study, gained through intensive course work and, in most cases, the preparation of a culminating…
Mathematics teachers are educated in diverse ways, depending to a great extent on the context in which the education occurs. Typically, pre-service teacher preparation occurs at the baccalaureate level, while in-service education occurs at the graduate level or is conducted by the local school systems in which the teacher is employed. There are, however, some pre-service programs in which particip…
Algebraic reasoning is a major development (circa 800), both culturally and individually. Culturally, the invention of algebraic representations in graphical and symbolic form is viewed as central for the advancement of mathematics and science. Algebra provides a succinct notation for recording mathematical relationships and describing computational algorithms and scientific laws. Algebraic reason…
Benjamin Elijah Mays was born to former slaves Hezekiah and Louvenia (Carter) Mays in Epworth, Greenwood County, South Carolina. The youngest of eight children, he became a theologian, theoretician, orator, author, college president, civil rights activist, and school board president. Casting himself as a "rebel," he greatly influenced the country and the world with his ideals and act…
Professor of educational psychology, William Anderson McCall was an expert in the construction of tests and measurements to evaluate student learning and achievement. Born in Wellsville, Tennessee, McCall received his early education in a one-room schoolhouse, near Red Ash, Kentucky. Reared in a family of limited means, he spent up to half of each calendar year, from the time he was nine years old…
The principal disseminator of Herbartian pedagogical ideas in the United States, Charles Alexander McMurry formulated the concept of interdisciplinary curriculum. He grew up in rural Illinois and took the classical high school course in the training school of the Illinois State Normal University (ISNU), followed by two years of classical study at the University of Michigan. He then taught in Illin…
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), "Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own" (2001, p.1224). The influence of media on children has been the subject of increased attention among parents, educators, and health care professionals. The significance of this issue becomes obvious when one notes the dive…
Educators have examined the impact of media on learning since at least 1912, when the American psychologist Edward L. Thorndike recommended pictures as a labor saving device for instruction. Five questions about media and learning will be briefly examined. The first section will define media and summarize the results of research on learning from media, the relative cost of media use, and the impac…
The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) is the standardized test required of all applicants to allopathic (M.D.), osteopathic (D.O.), and podiatric medical schools. It is also accepted as an option for some veterinary and allied health schools. The MCAT tests the mastery of basic biology, chemistry, and physics concepts, problem solving requiring the integration of these disciplines, critical th…
The path to a career in medicine in the United States is well defined. Aspiring physicians must earn an undergraduate degree, complete four years of medical school, participate in a minimum of three years of graduate medical training, and pass three national examinations for licensure. Becoming a physician also demands a desire to work with people; intellectual, emotional, and physical stamina; an…
The youngest of eight sons, Alexander Meiklejohn (1872–1964) was born in Rochdale, England, of Scottish parents. His family moved to Rhode Island when he was eight, and he later attended nearby Brown University where he earned his baccalaureate and master's degrees in philosophy. He followed his graduate adviser and close friend James Seth to Cornell University to pursue his doctorat…
In the early twenty-first century there is general agreement among memory researchers that memory consists of a number of distinctly different types of memory rather than one single memory. A brief overview of the major divisions in memory will help put autobiographical memory in context. Philosophers have long made a distinction between knowinghow (e.g., knowing how to ride a bicycle) and knowing…
It is estimated that the percentage of children and adolescents in the United States who are in need of mental health services is between 15 and 20 percent. This means that more than 10 million children in the country suffer from some mental disorder. It is also estimated that 3 to 8 percent have a serious mental illness. More children suffer from psychiatric illness than from leukemia, diabetes, …
Throughout history, the definition, diagnosis, terminology, and etiology of mental retardation have changed, influencing services, policy, education, and prevalence. Mental retardation is a condition of substantial limitations in intellectual functioning that impacts performance in daily life. Its diagnosis includes three criteria: concurrent, significant limitations in both intelligence and adapt…
Schools that provide mentoring programs assign a veteran teacher to act as adviser, teacher, and coach to beginning teachers within their schools. Some have defined mentoring as "a formalized relationship between a beginning teacher and a master teacher (mentor) that provides support and assesses teaching skills" (Education Commission of the States website). Others use the terms budd…
Microteaching is a scaled-down, simulated teaching encounter designed for the training of both preservice or in-service teachers. It has been used worldwide since its invention at Stanford University in the late 1950s by Dwight W. Allen, Robert Bush, and Kim Romney. Its purpose is to provide teachers with the opportunity for the safe practice of an enlarged cluster of teaching skills while learnin…
This entry provides an overview of the status of education in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It contains both statistically based assessments of individual countries as well as a discussion of the overall factors that are currently affecting the level of and accessibility to primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Current and future systemic challenges are also exposed, and po…
In 1888 Harvard University president Charles Eliot launched an effort to reorganize primary and secondary schooling. At that time, as state after state enacted compulsory attendance laws, eight-year elementary schools and four-year high schools were the most common types of institutions. But Eliot and his colleagues on the National Education Association's Committee of Ten on Secondary Schoo…
A nationally prominent social educator, Alice Miel was also a curriculum development scholar and practitioner. Miel, born on a small farm in rural Michigan, eventually studied to become a teacher during the height of the Progressive movement in education, which emerges as the strong undercurrent in Miel's life. Her formative years as an educator were spent at the University of Michigan and …
Anyone who has marveled at the amazing variety of fresh produce and canned and frozen foods in most U.S. supermarkets can thank a migrant farm worker for this bounty. In spite of increased mechanization of agricultural work, seasonal labor continues to be required for the cultivation and harvest of fruits and vegetables. The dairy and fishing industries are also reliant on seasonal migrant labor. …
The mission of the U.S. Air Force Academy, the nation's newest federal service academy, is to "inspire and develop outstanding young men and women to become Air Force officers with knowledge, character, and discipline; motivated to lead the world's greatest aerospace force in service to the nation." The academy is located just north of the city of Colorado Springs, Colo…
Career military officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of the Armed Forces of the United States are the beneficiaries of sequential, regularly scheduled periods of professional education. Military leaders return full-time to the "schoolhouse" every three to five years during a twenty-plus year career. Each of these in-residence educational experiences lasts from two months to a…
The training of armies as a systematic educational practice has ancient roots. While other trades, crafts, and vocations are often individual pursuits, organized warfare requires the common training of vast numbers to produce synchronized efforts and predictable responses under stress. The evolution of military training doctrine and professional education in the United States provides a model of e…
The definition of education corruption includes both its existence and the perception of its existence. According to Transparency International, for instance, Romania ranks 69 out of 91 countries in terms of corruption perception. Uzbekistan ranks 71 and the Russian Federation ranks 79. The definition of education corruption derives from the more general set of corruption issues. As in other areas…
The Mississippi freedom schools were an important project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) designed to promote freedom, self-determination, and participatory activism aimed at African-American youth in the improvement of local communities and state organizations. In November 1963 the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and the SNCC conceived a major civil rights incurs…
Mnemonic ("nee-moh-nick") techniques, also referred to as mnemonic strategies, mnemonic devices, or simply mnemonics, are systematic procedures designed to improve one's memory. The word mnemonic derives from the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, and means "memory enhancing." The most comprehensive treatise on the historical development of mnemonic techniques m…
Founded in 1883, the Modern Language Association (MLA) of America is the largest society of humanists in the United States. Its mission is to promote study, criticism, and research in the modern languages and their literatures and to further the common interests of teachers of these subjects. The MLA's programs are designed to serve the scholarly and professional interests of its members. T…
The Modern Red Schoolhouse (MRSh) is part of a larger effort in the United States to design schools for the twenty-first century–schools where all students can achieve world-class academic standards. In the early 1990s, during its design and pilot phase, MRSh was housed at the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization in Indianapolis, Indiana. The institute was awarded a compe…
Physician Maria Montessori is recognized as one of the pioneers in the development of early childhood education. She is also credited with promoting a substantial number of important educational reforms that have worked their way over the course of the twentieth century into the mainstream of education. These include the recognition of multiple pathways to learning, the importance of concrete or h…
The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, author of the 1932 book The Moral Judgment of the Child, is among the first psychologists whose work remains directly relevant to contemporary theories of moral development and education. From his observations and interviews of children, Piaget concluded that children begin in a "heteronomous" stage of moral reasoning, characterized by a strict adh…
Only a handful of educational theorists hold the view that if only the adult world would get out of the way, children would ripen into fully realized people. Most thinkers, educational practitioners, and parents acknowledge that children are born helpless and need the care and guidance of adults into their teens and often beyond. More specifically, children need to learn how to live harmoniously i…
New Hampshire state superintendent of public instruction, superintendent of the Laboratory Schools of the University of Chicago, professor, and author, Henry Clinton Morrison developed an approach to learning in which material is organized into units students must master in order to progress to the next level. His five-step general pattern for the instructional process became well known as the Mor…
Motivation is the study of why people think and behave as they do. In an achievement setting, someone would be concerned with motivation if he were to ask, for example, why some students persist to task completion despite enormous difficulty, while others give up at the slightest provocation; or why some students set such unrealistically high goals for themselves that failure is bound to occur. Mo…
Human beings use movement to learn about their world, to function in the world as they grow and mature, and to maintain healthy bodies. Individuals must learn to move and at the same time move to learn. Children explore their worlds through movement and make fundamental links between action and reality through movement. The scientific study and principles that under-gird motor learning provide the…
Multicultural education is an idea, an approach to school reform, and a movement for equity, social justice, and democracy. Specialists within multicultural education emphasize different components and cultural groups. However, a significant degree of consensus exists within the field regarding its major principles, concepts, and goals. A major goal of multicultural education is to restructure sch…
There have always been debates about what knowledge should be included in the general education curriculum (often referred to as the core curriculum). However, since the mid-1960s the debate has focused largely on the inclusion of racial, ethnic, women, gay, and lesbian voices in the curriculum. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the debate is not whether to do it, but how. Although man…
In ancient Greece the museum was for pure study and contemplation. Culture came first, learning second. In American museums, the earliest examples of the term education in museum mission statements were directed toward promoting democracy. In this way education in American museums was tied to the very identity of the nation. In the late eighteenth century, America saw the development of the public…
An observation of music classes in the public schools reveals that little changed in the last half of the twentieth century, including the education of music teachers. The value and role of music education in American schools has been affected, however, by the education reform movement and changes in the organization and delivery of instruction. One major change is that music often is not regarded…
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is one of three honorific societies which, with the National Research Council, are grouped together under the umbrella organization called the National Academies. The other organizations include the National Academy of Engineering (established in 1964) and the Institute of Medicine (1970). Together, the National Academies institutions marshal the talent, expe…
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1934 for the purpose of housing, protecting, and displaying the documents and records of United States history. The functions of NARA include responsibility for record retention throughout the government. NARA also provides guidance to regional records centers and depositories. NARA includes t…
The National Art Education Association (NAEA) is a nonprofit professional association of art teachers and other people dedicated to the advancement of art in education and national life. The mission of the association is to promote the study of art at all levels of education; to encourage research and experimentation in art; to convince local, state, and federal government officials of the importa…
The National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) is the only national association specifically organized to help educators at all levels improve the teaching of biology and life sciences. The purposes of the NABT are exclusively scientific, educational, literary, and charitable. Constitutionally, its objectives are to plan and administer projects for the advancement and utilization of knowledge…
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is a nonprofit organization of early childhood professionals and others who are dedicated to improving the quality of early childhood education. More than 100,000 members strong, the association comprises a network of more than 400 affiliated local, state, and regional organizations, which share the belief that children's …
The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) is a professional association dedicated to the professional development of principals serving grades kindergarten through eight. In addition, it seeks to provide a unified voice for its members in local, state, and national policy debates on issues affecting education and school administration. Finally, it seeks to make available res…
The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) is a Washington, D.C.-based umbrella association comprising more than 900 private nonprofit colleges, universities, and associations. The association's purpose is to further the cause of its membership by representing the accomplishments and interests of independent higher education. To accomplish its aims, the NAICU …
The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is an organization of independent elementary, middle, and secondary schools, as well as regional and local associations representing such schools. Sometimes called private schools, independent schools are nonprofit; supported by nonpublic funds such as tuition, charitable contributions, and endowments rather than tax or church funds; and gover…
The National Association of Schools of Art (NASAD) is composed of schools, organizations, and individuals, representing the highest traditions and aims in the education of the artists and designers. NASAD is a voluntary, nonprofit agency with every major center of art education activity embodied in its membership. NASAD gives equal concern to each of the various visual arts. The association is rec…
The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) is a national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and aspiring school leaders, providing its members the professional resources to serve as visionary leaders. The association was formed in 1916 by a group of seventy-eight high school principals from seven Midwestern states who met in Chicago, Illin…
The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) was established in Denver, Colorado, in 1959. Prior to the establishment of NASBE, individuals who served on state boards of education had limited opportunities to meet to discuss issues related to the development of state education policy. State board members, like many individuals involved in public education in the early fifties, wer…
The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) is an organization of more than 200 public universities, land-grant colleges, and state university systems. Within this constituency, seventy-five are land-grant colleges, including seventeen historically black public colleges and universities, and twenty-eight are public higher education systems. Thirty tribal colleg…
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was formed in 1987 as a response to A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983), published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, and its challenges to improve the quality of teaching and learning in U.S. schools. NBPTS has a three-part mission: (1) to establish high and rigorous standards for what ac…
The National Business Education Association (NBEA) is a private organization devoted to the use of education to advance ethical standards, professional conduct, diversity, and fairness in the field of business. It is the largest professional organization of its kind in the United States, and its influence is enhanced by the close ties it maintains to other business-related organizations both withi…
The National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) is the largest professional organization for Catholic educators in the United States. The association's principal objectives are to promote the welfare of Catholic education; to provide Catholic educational institutions with national and regional representation; to enable Catholic educators to work together for professional growth; to fos…
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is a federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating statistical information related to the U.S. educational system. The principle goals of the NCES are to collect data concerning the condition and progress of American education and to make that data available to federal and state public policy makers, professional educato…
The National Committee for Children and Youth (NCCY) is a private association that was established in 1960 as a part of President Eisenhower's White House Conference on Children and Youth. It was thus part of a larger initiative intended to improve the federal, state, and local services provided to the nation's children. The committee's original mandate was fivefold. It was to…
The National Communication Association (NCA) is the oldest and largest nonprofit, scholarly society dedicated to the field of communication, with a special emphasis on public speaking and other forms of speech communication. Its mission is to promote excellence in the research, teaching, and application of the "artistic, humanistic, and scientific principles of communication." It has…
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) was founded in 1975 with the conviction that legislative service is one of democracy's worthiest pursuits. Representing the citizens of a district and the people of a state is the very essence of free government. NCSL is recognized as the preeminent bipartisan organization dedicated to serving the lawmakers and staffs of the nation'…
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) is the accrediting body for colleges and universities that prepare teachers and other professional specialists for work in elementary and secondary schools. The NCATE accreditation process aims to ensure that accredited institutions produce competent, caring, and qualified teachers and other professional school personnel who can h…
The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is a private, nonprofit organization that, in the words of its mission statement, aims to "provide leadership, service, and support for social studies educators." It is inspired by the belief that all citizens in a participatory democracy must develop the content knowledge, intellectual skills, and civic values that a solid education…
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is, according to their literature, "a professional organization of educators in English studies, literacy, and language arts." This private, nonprofit organization is dedicated to promoting English language education at all levels, from kindergarten through graduate studies. The NCTE hosts four annual conferences, at which members ha…
Since its inception in 1920, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has been dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of mathematics. NCTM has positioned itself as a leader in efforts to ensure an excellent mathematics education for every student and to provide sustained professional development opportunities for every mathematics teacher to grow professionally. The mission…
The National Education Association (NEA) is America's oldest and largest professional employee organization committed to the cause of public education (as well as to the well-being of its members). Founded in 1857 in Philadelphia, and now headquartered in Washington, D.C., in 2001 the NEA membership includes more than 2.6 million elementary and secondary school teachers, college faculty, ed…
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent federal agency that supports and funds the arts in the United States. The endowment was established by the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, which defines the arts to include music, dance, drama, folk art, graphic art, creative writing, architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, crafts, industrial design, costume and fashion design, m…
On September 29, 1965 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation enacted by the eighty-ninth Congress creating the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, an independent federal agency consisting of two separate but cooperating organizations, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Through this legislation tangible express…
The National Governors Association (NGA) is powerful, bipartisan public policy and lobbying organization made up of the chief executives of America's fifty states, American Samoa, Guam, Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. The NGA serves as the collective voice of the nation's state governments and provides a forum by which governors and their staffs can examine…
The National Honor Society of Secondary Schools (NHS) was established in 1921 by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) to recognize and encourage scholastically outstanding high school students. Its founders wanted to form a society modeled after Phi Beta Kappa, the undergraduate collegiate honor society. The National Junior Honor Society of Secondary Schools (NJHS) was e…
Established in 1955, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that conducts the National Merit Scholarship Program. NMSC was initially funded by a $20 million Ford Foundation grant and a $500,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The National Merit Scholarship Program's purpose is to recognize academic achievement and gr…
National PTA is the oldest and largest volunteer child advocacy organization in the United States. Founded in 1897, National PTA is a not-for-profit organization of parents, educators, students, and other citizens who are active in their schools and communities. Membership in National PTA is open to anyone who is concerned with the education, health, and welfare of children and youth. National PTA…
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is the nationwide organization representing public school governance. NSBA's mission is to foster excellence and equity in public elementary and secondary education through school board leadership. NSBA achieves its mission by representing the school board perspective before federal government agencies and national organizations that affect educ…
The National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) defines itself in its mission statement as "a professional organization dedicated to building support for education through responsible public relations that leads to success for all students." Founded in 1935, NSPRA is the professional association for school communications specialists, superintendents, and others who are respo…
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the federal government, created by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (Pub. L. 81-597). The agency is responsible for promoting the progress of science and advancing the nation's health, prosperity, welfare, and security by supporting research and education in all fields of science and engineering. It is …
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) promotes excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all. Its guiding principles are to model excellence; to embrace and model diversity through equity, respect, and opportunity for all; to provide and expand professional development to support standards-based science education; to serve as a voice for excellence and innovation in…
The neighborhood has long been an icon of school quality, local responsiveness, and home/parent centeredness in U.S. education. The mythology of the neighborhood has been heavily reinforced by the deep popularity of the long-running children's television show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. A romantic image of the neighborhood has also often been at the heart of opposition to busing, schoo…
Alexander Sutherland Neill flouted educational convention with utopian faith in individuals' ability to direct their own learning. His romantic Progressive beliefs concerning students' rights and freedoms, his refusal to conform to popular moral and intellectual standards, and his emphasis on social and character development led him to found his own school, Summerhill, in 1921. Neill…
New American Schools (NAS) is a business-led non-profit organization whose mission is to significantly increase student achievement through comprehensive school improvement. Comprehensive school improvement is an effort to support high student achievement at the school, district, and state levels through the coherent alignment of five essential components: (1) leadership, management, and governanc…
Superintendent of Denver, Colorado, schools, director of the Lincoln Experimental School of Teachers College, Columbia University, and president of the National Education Association, Jesse Homer Newlon was one of the most well known progressive educational administrators of the early twentieth century. Born in Salem, Indiana, Newlon graduated from Indiana University in 1907. He earned a master&#x…
On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act. This act was a congressional reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) and is also known technically as Public Law 107-87. In April 1965, almost thirty-seven years prior to the enactment of Public Law 107-87, the 89th Congress and President Lyndon Baines Johnson had oversee…
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are entities, usually international nonprofits, which work in an independent fashion yet complement the work of governments for the benefit of constituencies in civil society. The nature of NGOs runs the gamut from lobbying and advocacy to operations and project-oriented organizations. Their mandates often but not always include working to complement the effort…
This entry will seek to identify and clarify the opposite of graded schools, for which the term nongraded schools is used. Although there are secondary schools that also seek to develop nongraded structures, the primary beneficiaries of the arrangement are children at the elementary school level. Briefly, nongradedness is defined in terms of respect for, and optimism about, individual differences.…
The term traditional students describes the characteristics of most students attending colleges and universities before 1970. These included: age between the late teens and early twenties; immediate entry to higher education following high school; full-time attendance and completion of a four year degree in four to five years; residence at the college or in its vicinity; and primary financial depe…
The NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science originated in the 1940s as an experiment in group relations called the National Training Laboratory. Directed toward the adult learner, NTL, which is a not-for-profit membership corporation, designs and delivers programs to reeducate adults to help them become better leaders at the group and systems level and to become sensitive to interpersonal dyn…
To place nursing education into perspective, it is helpful to reflect on the health care environment and the role of the nurse in that environment. The health care landscape in the United States has been changing at an unprecedented rate. Nursing education also has undergone changes to keep pace and to prepare leaders who are highly educated and technically sharp decision-makers and clinicians. Wh…
Proper nutrition is crucial for the appropriate growth and development of children. Undernourished children are at risk for illness, cognitive delay, and poor social skills. Overnourished children are at risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and a shortened life span. Proper nutrition implies adequate caloric intake for optimal growth and development. At birth, a child's metabolic rate…
Open education is a philosophy which values the natural development and experience of the child as the primary determinants for the appropriate curriculum and methods. During the 1960s the world witnessed a remarkable amount of social change and the emergence of new philosophies in various aspects of society. Groups seeking reform challenged many institutional practices. Criticism from these group…
Open education refers to a philosophy, a set of practices, and a reform movement in early childhood and elementary education that flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States. It received support from similar work that had been developing for many years in England, where it was simply termed modern education. Its development in both countries relied upon the long tradition of …
From birth to age eighteen, children spend just a fraction of their lives in school. Thus it is not surprising that many factors outside the school environment can significantly influence students' prospects for academic success in school. These factors are in play both during the years before children begin formal schooling and while they are actually enrolled in elementary and secondary s…
Few educational concepts have sparked as much interest, enthusiasm, misunderstanding, and controversy during the 1990s as Outcome Based Education (OBE). In one form or another, and sometimes against their political wills, educators the world over are increasingly focusing their efforts on what are variously being called outcomes, results, performances, competencies, or standards. Whether proposed …
Outdoor education and environmental education are separate but closely related areas of study within the field of education. They share some common content and processes, although they are distinctive in other important ways. Various interpretations have appeared in the literature, but their original purposes have changed very little since their inceptions. This article will define the terms and s…
In 1982 a group of scholars and educators headed by philosopher Mortimer Adler published The Paideia Proposal, and it is difficult to name a leading educational reform program since that has not been directly or indirectly influenced by Paideia principles. Paideia is the Greek word for the nurturing of children, and the Paideia Group was dedicated to providing a powerful public education for all. …
The first female college president and the first president of Wellesley College, Alice Freeman Palmer was the founding dean of women at the University of Chicago. Born on a farm in mid-state New York, Palmer grew up with the rural expectation that women would work hard to help support their families. At age fifteen she surprised her parents by announcing that she intended to go to college. She was…
Although widespread support for parental involvement is reflected in current educational policies and practices, what this means is not always clear. Parental involvement includes a wide range of behaviors but generally refers to parents' and family members' use and investment of resources in their children's schooling. These investments can take place in or outside of school,…
The study of parenting and its impact on children and adolescents has long been a central concern to scholars interested in child development and education. Although some contemporary commentators have suggested that social scientists have overestimated the influence of parents on their children's development and have underemphasized the importance of genetic factors and forces outside the …
Peace education encompasses the key concepts of education and peace. While it is possible to define education as a process of systematic institutionalized transmission of knowledge and skills, as well as of basic values and norms that are accepted in a certain society, the concept of peace is less clearly defined. Many writers make an important distinction between positive and negative peace. Nega…
Influences on student learning in an academic environment can be numerous and contradictory. Determining the accuracy and relevance of information from teachers, friends, and classroom materials can be overwhelming. Which classroom features an individual student attends to depends, in part, on what that student values and prioritizes. The interactions among peers in the classroom are a normal and …
Programs to assist people with disabilities initiated by the federal government in the early decades of the twentieth century were designed strictly with vocational rehabilitation in mind, that is, with an emphasis on assisting men injured in military service or work-related injuries to sufficiently overcome disabling conditions to return to the work force. Other programs were developed to provide…
College and university students must adapt to environments plagued by rapid change, ambiguity, uncertainty, and depleted support systems. Students must also cope with a myriad of personal and psychological problems that range from basic adjustment and developmental, academic and learning, and career concerns to clinical-level mental illness. Within higher education, there exists general consensus …
An increasing amount of attention is being directed to the transition to higher education as experienced by traditional-age and adult students. It is a movement that incorporates a great deal of stress and challenge. Although some students are able to experience this transition as a challenge to personal growth, other students are overwhelmed by the changes and experience emotional maladjustment a…
In the history of education, the significant contributions of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi are (1) his educational philosophy and instructional method that encouraged harmonious intellectual, moral, and physical development; (2) his methodology of empirical sensory learning, especially through object lessons; and (3) his use of activities, excursions, and nature studies that anticipated Progressive …
The word education is used sometimes to signify the activity, process, or enterprise of educating or being educated and sometimes to signify the discipline or field of study taught in schools of education that concerns itself with this activity, process, or enterprise. As an activity or process, education may be formal or informal, private or public, individual or social, but it always consists in…
In special education, physical disabilities are physical limitations or health problems that interfere with school attendance or learning to such an extent that special services, training, equipment, materials, or facilities are required. In the early twenty-first century, approximately 500,000 school children in the United States were classified as having physical disabilities or other health imp…
"Physical education is the study, practice, and appreciation of the art and science of human movement" (Harrison, Blakemore, and Buck, p. 15). While movement is both innate and essential to an individual's growth and development, it is the role of physical education to provide instructional activities that not only promote skill development and proficiency, but also enhance an…
Director of the Institute of Educational Science in Geneva and professor of experimental psychology at the University of Geneva, Jean Piaget was the most influential developmental psychologist of the twentieth century. Many of Piaget's concepts and research methods have become so much a part of the conventional wisdom and practice that psychologists are often unaware of their origin. The st…
Plato's educational ideas derived in part from his conception of justice, both for individuals and for the ideal state. He viewed individuals as mutually dependent for their survival and well-being, and he proposed that justice in the ideal state was congruent with justice in the individual's soul. Plato's ideal state was a republic with three categories of citizens: artisans,…
The relationship between education and population has attracted the attention of both scholars and policymakers, especially since the mid-1970s. The rate of population growth and the number of people living on earth have both increased spectacularly since the beginning of the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, the human population increased at an average annual rate that was about f…
As graduate students complete their doctoral training, they have several options for employment. A natural step for a new Ph.D. is to enter the professoriate by accepting a faculty position at a college or university. Others choose to accept nonacademic positions in either private or public businesses. A third option is to enter a postdoctoral position (postdoc), with opportunities for continued r…
In 1998, more than 13 million children (19 percent of all children) under age eighteen lived in families with incomes below the official poverty threshold. Although children age eighteen and under represent 26 percent of the United States population, they comprise nearly 40 percent of the poverty population. Despite a steady decrease from 1993 (23%) to 1999 (17%) in the rate of children in poverty…
The chief executive officer of an institution of higher education in the United States is commonly known as president. There are some campuses, however, which use the titles of chancellor, dean, or chief executive officer in lieu of president. The diversity of higher education institutions in the United States has resulted in chief executive officers at U.S. colleges and universities with a wide v…
Father of the teaching machine, author of the first book on standardized testing, and founder of the Division on Adult Development and Aging of the American Psychological Association, Sidney Leavitt Pressey was an innovator. Although twenty-first century educators and psychologists are constantly rediscovering Pressey's contributions to their fields, few are aware of the range of topics tha…
The school principal is the highest-ranking administrator in an elementary, middle, or high school. Principals typically report directly to the school superintendent, but may report to the superintendent's designee, usually an associate superintendent, in larger school districts. The highest-ranking school level administrator in some private schools is called the head master. Head masters h…
Considerable diversity was evident among the 27,223 private elementary and secondary schools that existed in the United States in the autumn of 1999. "Other religious schools" were the most numerous at 49 percent; followed by Catholic schools, at 30 percent; and then nonsectarian schools, accounting for 22 percent of all private schools. Parochial (parish) schools were the most numer…
Professional development schools (PDSs) are innovative institutions formed through partnerships between teacher education programs and pre-K–12 schools. Their mission, like that of a teaching hospital in the field of medicine, is complex, consisting of strong professional preparation through intensive clinical experience, enhanced learning opportunities and outcomes for pre-K–12 stud…
Historians have debated whether a unified progressive reform movement existed during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. While some scholars have doubted the development of a cohesive progressive project, others have argued that while Progressive Era reformers did not march in lockstep, they did draw from a common reform discourse that connected their separate agendas in spi…
The project method is an educational enterprise in which children solve a practical problem over a period of several days or weeks. It may involve building a rocket, designing a playground, or publishing a class newspaper. The projects may be suggested by the teacher, but they are planned and executed as far as possible by the students themselves, individually or in groups. Project work focuses on…
An important figure in the vocational education movement, Charles Allen Prosser is particularly known as the architect of the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act and as the figurehead of the 1945 campaign for life adjustment education. Prosser, born as a steelworker's son in New Albany, Indiana, received B.A. (1897) and M.A. (1906) degrees from DePauw University, the LL.B. (1899) from the University of L…
Protestant schools are a small but dynamic and diverse part of the landscape of education in the United States. These institutions, which are usually much smaller than their state-controlled counterparts and depend heavily on private financing, enroll about 3 percent of all K–12 students. In 2000 approximately1.6 million students attended nearly 12,400 elementary and secondary Protestant sc…
School psychology is the application of psychological principles and techniques to the education of children. Drawing upon its own knowledge base and that of related fields, including clinical and educational psychology, school psychology focuses on the individual study of children's learning and adjustment primarily in educational settings. School psychology originated in the late nineteen…
Despite several decades of reform, public education in the United States is criticized by some as not teaching all children effectively. Consistently poor test results and low graduation rates attest to this. As a result, many taxpayers criticize public schools and demand better results. At the same time, many Americans express a deep faith in the ability of public education to address the needs o…
The three major financial functions in education–budgeting, accounting, and auditing–are separate, discrete operations, but they are nonetheless closely interrelated. They are required activities in providing reliable fiscal information, guidance, and accountability in the use of the $365 billion raised and expended in 2001 on preschool through grade twelve public education in the Un…
A leader in the American kindergarten movement, Alice Putnam was a Progressive educator who trained many teachers and helped establish public kindergartens in Chicago. The daughter of Chicago Board of Trade founding member William Loring Whiting and Mary Starr, she was educated privately in a school run by her mother and sister, and at the Dearborn Seminary. She married Joseph Robie Putnam, a busi…