| ability grouping | The assignment of pupils to homogeneous groups according to intellectual ability or level for instructional purposes.
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| academic freedom | The opportunity for teachers and students to learn, teach, study, research, and question without censorship, coercion, or external political and other restrictive influences.
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| academic learning time | The time a student is actively engaged with the subject matter and experiencing a high success rate.
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| academy | A classical secondary school in colonial America that emphasized elements of Latin and English grammar schools and by the nineteenth century became more of a college preparatory school. Also the name of the ancient Greek school founded by Plato.
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| accelerated program | The more rapid promotion of gifted students through school.
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| accountability | The obligation of schools and teachers to be held responsible for student performance.
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| accreditation | Certification of an education program or a school that has met professional standards of an outside agency.
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| acculturation | The acquisition of the dominant culture's norms by a member of the nondominant culture. The nondominant culture typically loses its own culture, language, and sometimes religion in this process.
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| achievement tests | Examinations of the knowledge and skills acquired, usually as a result of specific instruction.
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| adequate education | A legal approach that ensures educational opportunities for poorer students based on state constitution guarantees for an efficient, thorough, or uniform education. Calls for adequate education have replaced previous calls for equal educational expenditures.
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| adequate yearly progress (AYP) | A provision under the No Child Left Behind Act that requires each state to measure school and student achievement to insure that appropriate progress is being made. Schools that fail to meet the AYP criteria (often determined by standardized tests) face consequences.
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| adult education | Courses and programs offered to high school graduates by colleges, business, industry, and governmental and private organizations that lead to academic degrees, occupational preparation, and the like.
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| advanced placement | Courses and programs in which younger students can earn college credit.
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| aesthetics | The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of beauty and judgments about it.
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| affective domain | The area of learning that involves attitudes, values, and emotions.
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| affirmative action | A plan by which personnel policies and hiring practices reflect positive steps in the recruiting and hiring of women and people of color.
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| allocated time | The amount of time a school or an individual teacher schedules for a subject.
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| alternative families | Family units that differ from the traditional image; examples include foster care children, single parents, central role of grandparents, and gay couples.
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| alternative licensure | A procedure for acquiring a teacher's license for those who have not graduated from a traditional state approved teacher education program.
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| alternative school | A private or public school that provides religious, academic, or other alternatives to the regular public school.
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| American Federation of Teachers (AFT) | A national organization of teachers that is primarily concerned with improving educational conditions and protecting teachers' rights.
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| Americanization | The acculturation of American norms and values.
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| American Spelling Book | An early elementary textbook written by Noah Webster that focused on the alphabet, grammar, and moral lessons.
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| A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform | A 1983 federal report that characterized U.S. schools as mediocre, putting the nation at risk of losing economic and technological ground to other countries. The report called for renewed emphasis on core academic subjects and ushered in the era of "back-to-basics" education.
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| appropriate education | A part of Public Law 94-142 that protects the right of students with disabilities to an education that reflects an accurate diagnosis.
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| assimilation | See enculturation.
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| assistive (adaptive) technology | Devices that help the disabled to perform and learn more effectively, from voice-activated keyboards and mechanical wheelchairs to laptops for class note taking and personal scheduling.
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| asynchronous | A term that describes nonsimultaneous students enrolled in an Internet course. They need not participate at the same time, and may take the course although they live in different time zones.
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| authentic assessment | A type of evaluation that represents actual performance, encourages students to reflect on their own work, and is integrated into the student's whole learning process. Such tests usually require that students synthesize knowledge from different areas and use that knowledge actively.
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| back to basics | During the 1980s, a revival of the back-to-basics movement evolved out of concern for declining test scores in math, science, reading, and other areas. Although there is not a precise definition of back to basics, many consider it to include increased emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic, fewer electives, and more rigorous grading.
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| behavioral objective | A specific statement of what a learner must accomplish to demonstrate mastery.
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| behavior modification | A strategy to alter behavior in a desired direction through the use of rewards.
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| bilingual education | Educational programs in which students of limited or no English-speaking ability attend classes taught in English, as well as in their native language. There is great variability in these programs in goals, instructional opportunity, and balance between English and a student's native language.
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| block grants | Federal dollars provided to the states, with limited federal restrictions, for educational aid and program funding.
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| block scheduling | The use of longer "blocks" of time to schedule classes, resulting in fewer but longer periods given to each subject. It is designed to promote greater in-depth study.
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| Bloom's taxonomy | A classification system in which each lower level is subsumed in the next higher level. The Bloom's taxonomy describes simple to more complex mental processes, and usually is used to classify educational objectives or classroom questions.
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| board of education | Constituted at the state and local levels, an agency responsible for formulating educational policy. Members are sometimes appointed, but more frequently are elected at the local level.
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| bond | A certificate of debt issued by a government guaranteeing payment of the original investment plus interest by a specified future date. Bonds are used by local communities to raise the funds they need to build or repair schools.
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| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka | U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reversed an earlier "separate but equal" ruling and declared that segregated schooling was inherently unequal and therefore unlawful.
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| Buckley Amendment | The 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act granting parents of students under 18, and students 18 or over the right to examine their school records.
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| busing | A method for remedying segregation by transporting students to create more ethnically or racially balanced schools. Before busing and desegregation were linked, busing was not a controversial issue, and, in fact, the vast majority of students riding school buses are not involved in desegregation programs.
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| career ladder | A system designed to create different status levels for teachers by developing steps one can climb to receive increased pay through increased responsibility or experience.
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| career technical education | A program to teach elementary and secondary students about the world of work by integrating career awareness and exploration across the school curriculum.
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| Cartesian dualism | The belief that reality is composed of both materialism and idealism, body and mind.
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| categorical grant | Financial aid to local school districts from state or federal agencies for specific purposes.
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| certification | State government's or a professional association's evaluation and approval of an applicant's competencies.
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| character education | A model composed of various strategies that promote a defined set of core values to students.
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| charter school | A school established by a charter between a local school board or a state government and a group of teachers, parents, and even businesses. A charter school is exempt from many state and local regulations. Designed to promote creative new schools, the charter represents legal permission to try new approaches to educate students. The first charter legislation was passed in Minnesota in 1991.
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| chief state school officer | The executive head of a state department of education. The chief state school officer is responsible for carrying out the mandates of the state board of education and enforcing educational laws and regulations. This position is also referred to as state superintendent.
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| child abuse | Physical, sexual, or emotional violation of a child's health and well-being.
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| child advocacy movement | A movement dedicated to defining and protecting the rights of children. Child advocates recognize that children are not yet ready to assume all the rights and privileges of adults, but they are firmly committed to expanding the rights currently enjoyed by children and to no longer treating children as objects or the property of others.
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| child-centered instruction (individual instruction) | Teaching that is designed to meet the interests and needs of individual students.
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| classroom climate | The physical, emotional, and aesthetic characteristics, as well as the learning resources, of a school classroom.
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| Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) | A reform effort founded by Theodore Sizer that creates smaller schools, learning communities, and more in-depth study of the curriculum.
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| cognitive domain | The area of learning that involves knowledge, information, and intellectual skills.
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| Coleman report | A study commissioned by President Johnson (1964) to analyze the factors that influence the academic achievement of students. One of the major findings of James Coleman's report was that schools in general have relatively little impact on learning. Family and peers were found to have more impact on a child's education than the school itself did.
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| collaborative action research | A program that connects teaching and professional growth through the use of research relevant to classroom responsibilities.
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| collaborative decision making | An effort to empower teachers in which teachers share power with the school principal and actively participate in curricular, budgetary, and other school policy decisions.
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| collective bargaining | A negotiating procedure between employer and employees for resolving disagreements on salaries, work schedules, and other conditions of employment. In collective bargaining, all teachers in a school system bargain as one group through chosen representatives.
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| Comer model | A program created and disseminated by James Comer of Yale that incorporates a team of educational and mental health professionals to assist children at risk by working with their parents and attending to social, educational, and psychological needs.
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| common school | A public, tax-supported school. First established in Massachusetts, the school's purpose was to create a common basis of knowledge for children. It usually refers to a public elementary school.
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| community schools | Schools connected with a local community to provide for the educational needs of that community.
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| compensatory education | Educational experiences and opportunities designed to overcome or compensate for difficulties associated with a student's disadvantaged background.
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| competency | The ability to perform a particular skill or to demonstrate a specified level of knowledge.
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| comprehensive high school | A public secondary school that offers a variety of curricula, including vocational, academic, and general education programs.
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| comprehensive values education | An approach to moral education that integrates traditional and progressive strategies for teaching values.
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| compulsory attendance | A state law requiring that children and adolescents attend school until reaching a specified age.
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| computer-assisted instruction (CAI) | Individualized instruction between a student and programmed instructional material stored in a computer.
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| computer-managed instruction (CMI) | A recordkeeping procedure for tracking student performance using a computer.
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| consolidation | The trend toward combining small or rural school districts into larger ones.
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| constructivism | With roots in cognitive psychology, an educational approach built on the idea that people construct their understanding of the world. Constructivist teachers gauge a student's prior knowledge, then carefully orchestrate cues, classroom activities, and penetrating questions to push students to higher levels of understanding.
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| content standards | The knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should master in each subject. These standards are often linked to broader themes and sometimes to testing programs.
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| cooperative learning | An instructional model in which students work on activities in small groups and receive rewards based on the overall group performance.
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| Copyright Act | A federal law that protects intellectual property, including copyrighted material. Teachers can use such material in classrooms only with permission or under specific guidelines.
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| core curriculum | A central body of knowledge that schools require all students to study.
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| core knowledge | Awareness of the central ideas, beliefs, personalities, writings, events, etc. of a culture. Also termed cultural literacy.
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| corporal punishment | The physical disciplining of a student by a school employee.
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| Creationism | The position that God created the universe, the earth, and living things on the earth in precisely the manner described in the Old Testament, in six, 24-hour periods.
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| critical pedagogy | An education philosophy that unites the theory of critical thinking with actual practice in real-world settings. The purpose is to eliminate the cultural and educational control of the dominant group, to have students apply critical thinking skills to the real world and become agents for social change.
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| critical thinking skills | Higher-order intellectual skills such as comparing, interpreting, observing, summarizing, classifying, creating, and criticizing.
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| cultural difference theory | A theory that asserts that academic problems can be overcome if educators study and mediate the cultural gap separating school and home.
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| cultural literacy | Knowledge of the people, places, events, idioms and informal content of the dominant culture.
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| culturally responsive teaching | An approach to multicultural education that recognizes that students learn in different ways, and that effective teachers recognize and respond to those differences. This approach also mediates the frequent mismatch between home and school cultures and honors cultural heritages.
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| cultural pluralism | Acceptance and encouragement of cultural diversity.
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| culture | A set of learned beliefs, values, and behaviors; a way of life shared by members of a society.
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| curriculum (formal, explicit) | Planned content of instruction that enables the school to meet its aims.
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| curriculum development | The processes of assessing needs, formulating objectives, and developing instructional opportunities and evaluation.
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| dame schools | Primary schools in colonial and other early periods in which students were taught by untrained women in the women's own homes.
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| day care centers | Facilities charged with caring for children. The quality of care varies dramatically and may range from well-planned educational programs to little more than custodial supervision.
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| decentralization | The trend of dividing large school districts into smaller and, it is hoped, more responsive units.
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| deductive reasoning | Working from a general rule to identify particular examples and applications to that rule.
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| de facto segregation | The segregation of racial or other groups resulting from circumstances, such as housing patterns, rather than from official policy or law.
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| deficit theory | A theory that asserts that the values, language patterns, and behaviors that children from certain racial and ethnic groups bring to school put them at an educational disadvantage.
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| de jure segregation | The segregation of racial or other groups on the basis of law, policy, or a practice designed to accomplish such separation.
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| delegate representative | Form of representative government in which the interests of a particular geographic region are represented through an individual or "delegate." Some school boards are organized so that members act as delegates of a neighborhood or region.
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| demographic forecasting | The study and predictions of people and their vital statistics.
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| Department of Education | U.S. cabinet-level department in charge of federal educational policy and the promotion of programs to carry out policies.
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| descriptive data | Information that provides an objective depiction of various aspects of school or classroom life.
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| desegregation | The process of correcting past practices of racial or other illegal segregation.
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| detrack | The movement to eliminate school tracking practices, which often have racial, ethnic, and class implications.
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| differentiated instruction | An approach to teaching in which instructional activities are organized in response to individual learning differences. Teachers are asked to carefully consider each student's needs, learning style, life experience, and readiness to learn.
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| digital divide | A term used to describe the technological gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots." Race, gender, class, and geography are some of the demographic factors influencing technological access and achievement.
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| direct teaching | A model of instruction in which the teacher is a strong leader who structures the classroom and sequences subject matter to reflect a clear academic focus. This model emphasizes the importance of a structured lesson in which presentation of new information is followed by student practice and teacher feedback.
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| disability | A learning or physical condition, a behavior, or an emotional problem that impedes education. Educators now prefer to speak of "students with disabilities," not "handicapped students," emphasizing the person, not the disability.
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| distance learning | Courses, programs, and training provided to students over long distances through television, the Internet, and other technologies.
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| dot.kids | An adult-supervised Internet domain designed to protect children from inappropriate Internet content.
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| dual-track system | The European traditional practice of separate primary schools for most children and secondary schools for the upper class.
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| due process | The procedural requirements that must be followed in such areas as student and teacher discipline and placement in special education programs. Due process exists to safeguard individuals from arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable policies, practices, or actions. The essential elements of due process are (1) a notice of the charge or actions to be taken, (2) the opportunity to be heard, (3) and the right to a defense that reflects the particular circumstances and nature of the case.
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| early childhood education | Learning undertaken by young children in the home, in nursery schools, in preschools, and in kindergartens.
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| eclecticism | In this text, the drawing on of elements from several educational philosophies or methods.
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| Edison Schools (Edison Project) | An educational company that contracts with local school districts, promising to improve student achievement while making a profit in the process.
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| educable child | A mentally retarded child who is capable of achieving only a limited basic learning and usually must be instructed in a special class.
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| educational malpractice | A new experimental line of litigation similar to the concept of medical malpractice. Educational malpractice is concerned with assessing liability for students who graduate from school without fundamental skills. However, many courts have rejected the notion that schools or educators be held liable for this problem.
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| educational park | A large, campuslike facility often including many grade levels and several schools and often surrounded by a variety of cultural resources.
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| educational partnership | A business relationship between schools and corporations through which companies offer schools services and products and often have their corporate names used in the schools.
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| educational television programming | Television programs that promote learning.
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| Eight-Year Study | Educator Ralph Tyler's study in the 1930s that indicated the effectiveness of progressive education.
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| elementary school | An educational institution for children in grades 1 through 5, 6, or 8, often including kindergarten.
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| emergency license | A substandard license that recognizes teachers who have not met all the requirements for licensure. It is issued on a temporary basis to meet the needs of communities that do not have licensed teachers available.
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| emotional intelligence (EQ) | A new human dimension that measures personality characteristics, such as persistence. Some believe that EQ scores may be better predictors of future success than IQ scores.
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| empiricism | The philosophy that maintains that sensory experiences, such as seeing, hearing, and touching, are the ultimate sources of all human knowledge. Empiricists believe that we experience the external world by sensory perception; then, through reflection, we conceptualize ideas that help us interpret the world.
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| enculturation | The process of acquiring a culture; a child's acquisition of the cultural heritage through both formal and informal educational means.
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| endorsement | The extension of a license through additional work to include a second teaching field.
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| engaged time | The part of time that a teacher schedules for a subject in which the students are actively involved with academic subject matter. Listening to a lecture, participating in a class discussion, and working on math problems all constitute engaged time.
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| English as a Second Language (ESL) | An immersion approach to bilingual education that removes students from the regular classroom to provide instruction in English.
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| English Classical School | The first free public high school, established in Boston in 1821. The school initially enrolled only boys.
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| English grammar schools | Private schools that taught commerce, navigation, engineering, and other vocational skills. The demand for a more practical education in eighteenth-century America led to the creation of these schools.
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| English language learners (ELL) | Students whose native language is not English and are learning to speak and write English. Also referred to as limited English proficiency or LEP.
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| environmental education | The study and analysis of the conditions and causes of pollution, overpopulation, and waste of natural resources, and of the ways to preserve Earth's intricate ecology.
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| epistemology | The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of knowledge and learning.
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| equal educational opportunity | A term that refers to giving every student the educational opportunity to develop fully whatever talents, interests, and abilities he or she may have, without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or economic status.
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| equity | Educational policy and practice that are just, fair, and free from bias and discrimination.
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| essentialism | An educational philosophy that emphasizes basic skills of reading, writing, mathematics, science, history, geography, and language.
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| establishment clause | A section of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that says that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. This clause prohibits nonparochial schools from teaching religion.
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| ethics | The branch of philosophy that examines questions of right and wrong, good and bad.
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| ethnic group | A group of people with a distinctive culture and history.
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| ethnicity | A term that refers to shared common cultural traits such as language, religion, and dress. A Latino or Hispanic, for example, belongs to an ethnic group, but might belong to the Black, Caucasian, or Asian race.
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| ethnocentrism | The tendency to view one's own culture as superior to others, or to fail to consider other cultures in a fair manner.
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| evaluation | Assessment of learning and instruction.
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| evolution | As put forth by Charles Darwin, a keystone of modern biological theory and postulates that animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that there are modifications in successive generations.
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| exceptional learners | Students who require special education and related services to realize their full potential. Categories of exceptionality include retarded, gifted, learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, and physically disabled.
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| existentialism | A philosophy that emphasizes the ability of an individual to determine the course and nature of his or her life and the importance of personal decision making.
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| expectation theory | First made popular by Rosenthal and Jacobson, a theory that holds that a student's academic performance can be improved if a teacher's attitudes and beliefs about that student's academic potential are modified.
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| expulsion | Dismissal of a student from school for a lengthy period, ranging from one semester to permanently.
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| extracurriculum | The part of school life that comprises activities, such as sports, academic and social clubs, band, chorus, orchestra, and theater. Many educators think that the extracurriculum develops important skills and values, including leadership, teamwork, creativity, and diligence.
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| failing school | The term given to a school when a large proportion of its students do not do well on standardized tests or other academic measures. Critics charge that students attending such schools are not receiving their constitutionally guaranteed adequate education.
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| fair use | A legal principle allowing limited use of copyrighted materials. Teachers must observe three criteria: brevity, spontaneity, and cumulative effect.
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| First Amendment | The constitutional Amendment that protects freedom of religion and speech. An important part of this Amendment is the establishment clause, which prohibits schools and the government from promoting or inhibiting religion in schools.
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| five-factor theory | A theory, developed through school effectiveness research, that emphasizes five factors: effective leadership, monitoring student progress, safety, a clear vision, and high expectations.
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| Flanders Interaction Analysis | An instrument developed by Ned Flanders for categorizing student and teacher verbal behavior. It is used to interpret the nature of classroom verbal interaction.
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| flexible scheduling | A technique for organizing time more effectively to meet the needs of instruction by dividing the school day into smaller time modules that can be combined to fit a task.
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| formal or explicit curriculum | A school's official curriculum that is reflected in academic courses and requirements.
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| foundation program | Program for distribution of state funds designed to guarantee a specified minimum level of educational support for each child.
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| full service school | Schools that provide a network of social services from nutrition and health care to parental education and transportation, all designed to support the comprehensive educational needs of children.
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| future shock | Term coined by Alvin Toffler. It refers to the extraordinarily accelerated rate of change and the disorientation of those unable to adapt to rapidly altered norms, institutions, and values.
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| futurism | The activity of forecasting and planning for future developments.
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| gatekeeping | Philip Jackson's term describing how teachers control classroom interactions.
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| gender bias | The degree to which an individual's beliefs and behavior are unduly influenced on the basis of gender. See also sex discrimination.
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| gendered career | A term applied to the gender stereotyping of career and occupational fields. Teaching, for example, was initially gendered male but today is gendered female, particularly at the elementary school level.
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| generalizations | Broad statements about a group that offer information, clues, and insights that can help a teacher plan more effectively. Generalizations are a good starting point, but as the teacher learns more about the students, individual differences become more educationally significant.
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| gifted learner | A term most frequently applied to those with exceptional intellectual ability. It may also refer to learners with outstanding ability in athletics, leadership, music, creativity, and so forth. There is great variance in definitions and categorizations of the "gifted."
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| global education | Because economics, politics, scientific innovation, and societal developments in different countries have an enormous impact on children in the United States, the goals of global education include increased knowledge about the peoples of the world, resolution of global problems, increased fluency in foreign languages, and the development of more tolerant attitudes toward other cultures and peoples.
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| Golden Mean | The doctrine put forth by Aristotle asserting that virtue lies in the middle ground between two extremes.
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| Great Books | The heart of the perennialists' curriculum that includes great works of the past in literature, philosophy, science, and other areas.
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| guaranteed tax base program | A program that adds state funds to local tax revenues, especially in poorer communities to enhance local educational expenditures.
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| Gun-free Schools Act | Legislation enacted by Congress in 1994 that requires states receiving federal funds to establish laws regarding firearms. Schools can lose federal funds if they do not have a zero-tolerance policy mandating one-year expulsions for students bringing firearms to schools. The vast majority of schools report zero-tolerance policies for firearms.
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| Head Start | Federally funded pre-elementary school program to provide learning opportunities for disadvantaged students.
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| heteronormativity | A viewpoint that denies lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals and sees all people as heterosexual.
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| hidden (implicit) curriculum | What students learn, other than academic content, from what they do or are expected to do in school; incidental learnings.
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| hidden government | The unofficial power structure within a school. It cannot be identified by the official title, position, or functions of individuals. For example, it reflects the potential influence of a school secretary or custodian.
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| higher-order questions | Questions that require students to go beyond memory in formulating a response. These questions require students to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and so on.
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| homeschooling | A growing trend (but a longtime practice) of parents educating their children at home, for religious or philosophical reasons.
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| hornbook | A single sheet of parchment containing the Lord's Prayer and letters of the alphabet. It was protected by a thin sheath from the flattened horn of a cow and fastened to a wooden board—hence the name. It was used during the colonial era in primary schools.
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| humanistic education | A curriculum that stresses personal student growth; self-actualizing, moral, and aesthetic issues are explored.
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| idealism | A doctrine holding that knowledge is derived from ideas and emphasizing moral and spiritual reality as a preeminent source of explanation.
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| immersion | A bilingual education model that teaches students with limited English by using a "sheltered" or simplified English vocabulary, but teaching in English and not in the other language.
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| inclusion | The practice of educating and integrating children with disabilities into regular classroom settings.
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| independent school | A nonpublic school unaffiliated with any church or other agency.
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| individualized education program (IEP) | The mechanism through which a disabled child's special needs are identified, objectives and services are described, and evaluation is designed.
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| individualized instruction | Curriculum content and instructional materials, media, and activities designed for individual learning. The pace, interests, and abilities of the learner determine the curriculum.
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| Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) | Federal law passed in 1990 that extends full education services and provisions to people identified with disabilities.
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| induction | A formal program assisting new teachers to successfully adjust to their role in the classroom.
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| inductive reasoning | Drawing generalizations based on the observation of specific examples.
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| informal education | A practice that, in many cultures, augments or takes the place of formal schooling as children learn adult roles through observation, conversation, assisting, and imitating.
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| infrastructure | The basic installations and facilities on which the continuance and growth of a community depend.
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| in loco parentis | Latin term meaning "in place of the parents"; that is, a teacher or school administrator assumes the duties and responsibilities of the parents during the hours the child attends school.
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| instruction | The process of implementing a curriculum.
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| INTASC | The Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, an organization that has identified competency standards for new teachers.
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| integrated curriculum (interdisciplinary curriculum) | Subject matter from two or more areas combined into thematic units (e.g., literature and history resources to study civil rights laws).
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| integration | The process of educating different racial and ethnic groups together, and developing positive interracial contacts.
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| Intelligent Design | The argument that instances in nature cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution, but instead are consistent with the notion of an intelligent involvement in the design of life.
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| interest centers | Centers that provide independent student activities related to a specific subject. Usually associated with an open classroom.
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| Internet | The worldwide computer network that rapidly facilitates information dissemination.
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| junior high school | A two- or three-year school between elementary and high school for students in their early adolescent years, commonly grades 7 and 8 or 7 through 9.
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| Kalamazoo, Michigan, case | An 1874 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of states to tax citizens to provide public secondary education.
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| kindergarten | A preschool, early childhood educational environment first designed by Froebel in the mid–nineteenth century.
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| labeling | Categorizing or classifying students for the purposes of educational placement. One unfortunate consequence may be that of stigmatizing students and inhibiting them from reaching their full potential.
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| laboratory schools | Schools often associated with a teacher preparation institution for practice teaching, demonstration, research, or innovation.
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| land grant colleges | State colleges or universities offering agricultural and mechanical curricula, funded originally by the Morrill Act of 1862.
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| Land Ordinance Act | A nineteenth-century federal law that required newly settled territories to reserve a section of land for schools.
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| language submersion | A bilingual education model that teaches students in classes where only English is spoken, the teacher does not know the language of the student, and the student either learns English as the academic work progresses or pays the consequences. This has been called a "sink or swim" approach.
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| last mile problem | A digital divide in which geography is a factor, in part because running fiber-optic cables to rural schools is often an expense that telecommunications companies avoid. See also digital divide.
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| latchkey (self-care) kids | A term used to describe children who go home after school to an empty house; their parents or guardians are usually working and not home.
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| Latin grammar school | A classical secondary school with a Latin and Greek curriculum preparing students for college.
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| learning communities | The creation of more personal collaboration between teachers and students to promote similar academic goals and values.
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| learning disability | An educationally significant language and/or learning deficit.
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| learning styles | Students learn in different ways and have different preferences, ranging from preferred light and noise levels to independent or group learning formats.
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| least-restrictive environment | The program best suited to meeting a disabled student's special needs without segregating the student from the regular educational program.
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| license | Official approval of a government agency for an individual to perform certain work, such as a teacher's license granted by a state.
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| limited English proficiency (LEP) | A student who has a limited ability to understand, speak, or read English and who has a native language other than English.
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| locus of control | A concept wherein learners attribute success or failure to external or internal factors. "The teacher didn't review the material well" is an example of attribution to an external factor and represents an external locus of control. In this case, the learner avoids responsibility for behavior. When students have an internal locus of control, they believe that they control their fate and take responsibility for events.
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| logic | The branch of philosophy that deals with reasoning. Logic defines the rules of reasoning, focuses on how to move from one set of assumptions to valid conclusions, and examines the rules of inference that enable us to frame our propositions and arguments.
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| looping | The practice of teaching the same class for several years, over two or even more grades. The purpose is to build stronger teacher–student connections.
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| lower-order questions | Questions that require the retrieval of memorized information and do not require more complex intellectual processes.
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| magnet school | A specialized school open to all students in a district on a competitive or lottery basis. It provides a method of drawing children away from segregated neighborhood schools while affording unique educational specialties, such as science, math, and the performing arts.
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| mainstreaming | The inclusion of special education students in the regular education program. The nature and extent of this inclusion should be based on meeting the special needs of the child.
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| maintenance approach (or developmental approach) | A bilingual model that emphasizes the importance of acquiring English while maintaining competence in the native language.
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| malfeasance | Deliberately acting improperly and causing harm to someone.
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| mastery learning | An educational practice in which an individual demonstrates mastery of one task before moving on to the next.
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| materialism | A philosophy focused on scientific observation and the belief that existence is experienced only in the physical realm.
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| McGuffey Reader | A reading series that, for almost 100 years, promoted moral and patriotic messages and set the practice of reading levels leading toward graded elementary schools.
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| McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act | The primary piece of federal legislation dealing with the education of homeless children in public schools.
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| mentor | A guide or an adviser, and a component of some first-year school induction programs designed to assist new teachers.
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| metacognition | Self-awareness of our thinking process as we perform various tasks and operations. For example, when students articulate how they think about academic tasks, it enhances their thinking and enables teachers to target assistance and remediation.
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| metaphysics | The area of philosophy that examines the nature of reality.
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| microteaching | A clinical approach to teacher training in which the teacher candidate teaches a small group of students for a brief time while concentrating on a specific teaching skill.
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| middle schools | Two- to four-year schools of the middle grades, often grades 6 through 8, between elementary school and high school.
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| minimum competency tests | Exit-level tests designed to ascertain whether students have achieved basic levels of performance in such areas as reading, writing, and computation. Some states require that a secondary student pass a minimum competency test to receive a high school diploma.
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| misfeasance | Failure to act in a proper manner to prevent harm.
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| moral stages | A model of moral development promoted by Lawrence Kohlberg in which individuals progress from simple moral concerns, such as avoiding punishment, to more sophisticated ethical beliefs and actions.
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| Morrill Act | Federal legislation (1862) granting federal lands to states to establish colleges to promote more effective and efficient agriculture and industry. A second Morrill Act, passed in 1890, provided federal support for "separate but equal" colleges for African Americans.
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| multicultural education | Educational policies and practices that not only recognize but also affirm human differences and similarities associated with gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, and class.
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| multiple intelligences | A theory developed by Howard Gardner to expand the concept of human intelligence to include such areas as logical-mathematical, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
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| multiracial | A term that peters to people whose ancestry consists of more than one race. This is the fastest-growing student demographic in the United States.
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| National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) | Program to ascertain the effectiveness of U.S. schools and student achievement.
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| National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) | An organization that evaluates teacher education programs in many colleges and universities. Graduates of programs approved by the NCATE receive licenses in over half the states, pending the successful completion of required state exams.
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| national curricular standards | Nationally prescribed or recommended standards, content skills, and testing.
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| National Defense Education Act (NDEA) | Federally sponsored programs (1958) to improve science, math, and foreign language instruction in schools.
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| National Education Association (NEA) | The largest organization of educators. The NEA is concerned with the overall improvement of education and of the conditions of educators. It is organized at the national, state, and local levels.
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| networking | The term used to describe the intentional effort to develop personal connections with individuals who could be helpful in finding positions or gaining professional advancement.
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| New England Primer | One of the first textbooks in colonial America, teaching reading and moral messages.
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| No Child Left Behind (NCLB) | A federal law passed in 2001 that emphasizes high-stakes standardized testing by requiring schools to annually assess students' achievement in reading, math, and science. Schools report not only individual test scores but also scores by race, ethnicity, disability, social class, and limited English proficiency.
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| nondiscriminatory education | A principle, based on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, that mandates that children with disabilities be fairly assessed so that they can be protected from inappropriate classification and tracking.
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| nonfeasance | Failure to exercise appropriate responsibility that results in someone's being harmed.
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| nongraded school | A school organization in which grade levels are eliminated for two or more years.
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| nonverbal communication | The act of transmitting and/or receiving messages through means not having to do with oral or written language, such as eye contact, facial expressions, and body language.
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| normal school | A two-year teacher education institution popular in the nineteenth century. Many normal schools were expanded to become today's state colleges and universities.
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| norm-referenced tests | Tests that compare individual students with others in a designated norm group.
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| Northwest Ordinance (1785, 1787) | Federal legislation that provided for the sale of federal lands in the Northwest territory to support public schools.
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| null curriculum | The curriculum that is not taught in schools.
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| objective | The purpose of a lesson expressed in a statement.
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| objective-referenced tests | Tests that measure whether students have mastered a designated body of knowledge rather than how they compare with other students in a norm group.
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| observation techniques | Structured methods for observing various aspects of school or classroom activities.
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| Old Deluder Satan Law (1647) | Massachusetts colony law requiring teachers in towns of fifty families or more and that schools be built in towns of one hundred families or more. Communities must teach children to read so that they can read the Bible and thwart Satan.
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| open classroom | A system of education, based on the British model, that involves not only an informal classroom environment but also a philosophy of education. Students pursue individual interests with the guidance and support of the teacher; interest centers are created to promote this individualized instruction. Students may also have a significant influence in determining the nature and sequence of the curriculum. It is sometimes referred to as open education.
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| open enrollment | The practice of permitting students to attend the school of their choice within their school system. It is sometimes associated with magnet schools and desegregation efforts.
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| open-space school | A school building without interior walls. Although it may be designed to promote the concept of the open classroom, the open-space school is an architectural concept rather than an educational one.
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| opportunity-to-learn standards | Standards that attempt to recognize and respond to individual differences and circumstances. Poorer students learning in schools with fewer resources should receive more appropriate and adequate learning opportunities, and if some students need more time to take tests, additional time should be provided. Also called delivery standards.
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| oral tradition | Spoken language is the primary method for instruction in several cultures around the world. Word problems are used to teach reasoning, proverbs to instill wisdom, and stories to teach lessons about nature, history, religion, and social customs.
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| outcome based education (OBE) | An educational approach that emphasizes setting learning outcomes and assessing student progress toward attaining those goals, rather than focusing on curricular topics.
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| paraprofessional | A layperson who serves as an aide, assisting the teacher in the classroom.
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| parochial school | An institution operated and controlled by a religious denomination.
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| peace studies | The study and analysis of the conditions of and need for peace, the causes of war, and the mechanisms for the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Also referred to as peace education.
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| pedagogical cycle | A system of teacher–student interaction that includes four steps: structure—teacher introduces the topic; question—teacher asks questions; respond—student answers or tries to answer questions; and react—teacher reacts to student's answers and provides feedback.
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| pedagogy | The science of teaching.
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| peer review | The practice of having colleagues observe and assess teaching, as opposed to administrators.
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| perennialism | The philosophy that emphasizes rationality as the major purpose of education. It asserts that the essential truths are recurring and universally true; it stresses Great Books.
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| performance standards | Statements that describe what teachers or students should be able to do, and how well they should do it.
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| permanent license | A license issued after a candidate has completed all the state teacher requirements may include a specified number of which college courses beyond the bachelor's degree or a specified number of years of teaching. There is variation from state to state.
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| philosophy | The love of or search for wisdom; the quest to understand the meaning of life.
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| phonics | An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes decoding words by sounding out letters and combinations of letters (as contrasted with the whole language approach).
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| Plessey v. Ferguson | An 1896 Supreme Court decision that upheld that "separate but equal" was legal and that the races could be segregated. It was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka.
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| political philosophy | An approach to analyzing how past and present societies are arranged and governed and how better societies may be created in the future.
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| portfolio | Compilations of work (such as papers, projects, videotapes) assembled to demonstrate growth, creativity, and competence. Often advocated as a more comprehensive assessment than test scores.
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| pragmatism | A philosophical belief that asserts truth is what works and rejects other views of reality.
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| Praxis series of tests | Developed by ETS to assess teachers' competence in various areas: reading, writing, math, professional and subject area knowledge. Praxis test requirements differ among states (see Appendix 1).
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| primary school | A separately organized and administered elementary school for students in the lower elementary grades, usually grades 1 through 3, and sometimes including preprimary years.
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| private school | A school controlled by an individual or agency other than the government, usually supported by other than public funds. Most private schools are parochial.
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| privatization | The movement toward increased private sector, for-profit involvement in the management of public agencies, including schools.
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| probationary teaching period | A specified period of time in which a newly hired teacher must demonstrate teaching competence. This period is usually three years for public school teachers and six years for college professors. Generally, on satisfactory completion of the probationary period, a teacher is granted tenure.
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| problem-based learning | An approach that builds a curriculum around intriguing real-life problems and asks students to work cooperatively to develop and demonstrate their solutions.
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| procedural due process | The right of children with disabilities and their parents to be notified of school actions and decisions; to challenge those decisions before an impartial tribunal, using counsel and expert witnesses; to examine the school records on which a decision is based; and to appeal whatever decision is reached.
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| professional development | School district efforts to improve knowledge, skills and performance of its professional staff.
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| progressive education (progressivism) | An educational philosophy emphasizing democracy, student needs, practical activities, and school–community relationships.
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| progressivism | An educational philosophy that organizes schools around the concerns, curiosity, and real-world experiences of students.
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| property tax | Local real estate taxes (also cars and personal property) historically used to fund local schools.
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| race | Refers to a group of individuals sharing common genetic attributes, physical appearance, and ancestry.
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| racial discrimination | Actions that limit or deny a person or group any privileges, roles, or rewards on the basis of race.
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| racism | Attitudes, beliefs, and behavior based on the notion that one race is superior to other races.
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| rationalism | The philosophy that emphasizes the power of reason and the principles of logic to derive statements about the world. Rationalists encourage schools to emphasize teaching mathematics, because mathematics involves reason and logic.
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| readability formulas | Formulas that use objective, quantitative measures to determine the reading level of textbooks.
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| reciprocity | A mutual exchange of rights or benefits. For example, a teacher's license in one state is recognized as valid in another.
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| reconstructionism (reconstructionist) | A view of education as a way to improve the quality of life, to reduce the chances of conflict, and to create a more humane world. Also called social reconstructionism.
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| reflective teaching | An approach to teaching that promotes thoughtful consideration and dialogue about classroom events. Predicated on a broad and in-depth understanding of what is happening in the classroom.
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| regular education initiative | The attempt to reduce the complications and expense of segregated special education efforts by teaching special needs students in the standard educational program through collaborative consultation, curricular modifications, and environment adaptations.
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| relational aggression | A term that refers to subtle, unhealthy peer dynamics used to gain social power. (Examples include spreading rumors and gossip, excluding peers, teasing, covert bullying.)
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| résumé | A summary of a person's education and experiences, often used for application to school or employment.
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| revenue sharing | The distribution of federal money to state and local governments to use as they decide.
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| Robin Hood laws | Legislation passed by many states that requires the redistribution of revenue from wealthier to poorer communities to equalize educational funding, a process not unlike the efforts of the hero of Sherwood Forest.
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| Robin Hood reformers | Attempted to equalize school funding by moving money from wealthy school districts to poorer ones.
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| romantic critics | Critics such as Paul Goodman, Herbert Kohl, and John Holt who believed that schools were stifling the cognitive and affective development of children. Individual critics stressed different problems or solutions, but they all agreed that schools were producing alienated, uncreative, and unfulfilled students.
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| rubric | A scoring guide that describes what must be done, and often describes performance levels ranging from novice to expert, or from a failing grade to excellence.
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| sabbatical | A leave usually granted with full or partial pay after a teacher has taught for a specified period of time (for example, six years). Typically, it is to encourage research and professional development. Although common at the university level, it is rare for K–12 teachers.
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| school-based management | The recent trend in education reform that stresses decision making on the school level. In the past, school policies were set by the state and the districts. Now the trend is for individual schools to make their own decisions and policies.
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| school boards | Elected or appointed officials who determine educational policies for school systems.
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| school choice | The name given to several programs in which parents choose what school their child will attend.
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| school financing | A term that refers to the ways in which monies are raised and allocated to schools. The methods differ widely from state to state, and many challenges are being made in courts today because of the unequal distribution of funds within a state or among states.
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| school infrastructure | The basic facilities and structures that underpin a school plant, such as plumbing, sewage, heat, electricity, roof, masonry, and carpentry.
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| school superintendent | The chief administrator of a school system, responsible for implementing and enforcing the school board's policies, rules, and regulations, as well as state and federal requirements. The superintendent is directly responsible to the school board and is the formal representative of the school community to outside individuals and agencies.
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| schools without walls | An alternative education program that involves the total community as a learning resource.
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| School to Work Opportunities Act | Federal legislation that authorizes the funding of programs that link school learning to job settings, often developed in partnerships between school and industry.
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| secondary school | A program of study that follows elementary school and includes junior, middle, and high school.
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| second-generation segregation | The separation of a school's multiracial populations through tracking, extracurricular activities, and informal social events.
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| secular humanism | The belief that people can live ethically without faith in a supernatural or supreme being. Some critics have alleged that secular humanism is a form of religion and that publishers are promoting secular humanism in their books.
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| self-censorship (stealth censorship) | The quiet removal of a book from a library shelf or a course of study to avoid possible problems and parental complaints. Teachers practice the same sort of self-censorship when they choose not to teach a topic or not to discuss a difficult issue.
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| separate but equal | A legal doctrine that holds that equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though those facilities are separate. This doctrine was ruled unconstitutional in regard to race.
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| service credit | By volunteering in a variety of community settings, from nursing homes to child care facilities, students are encouraged to develop a sense of community and meet what is now a high school graduation requirement in some states.
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| sex discrimination | Any action that limits or denies a person or group of persons opportunities, privileges, roles, or rewards on the basis of sex.
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| sexism | The collection of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior that results from the assumption that one sex is superior to the other.
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| sex-role stereotyping | Attributing behavior, abilities, interests, values, and roles to a person or group of persons on the basis of sex. This process ignores individual differences.
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| sexual harassment | Unwanted, repeated, and unreturned sexual words, behaviors, or gestures prohibited by federal and some state laws.
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| simulation | A role-playing technique in which students take part in re-created, lifelike situations.
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| site-based management | A school governance method that shifts decision making from the central district office to individual schools. See also school-based management.
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| social Darwinism | A belief similar to Darwin's notion of "survival of the fittest," that contends that society is a natural sorting system which rewards the talented and places the less deserving at the bottom of the social and economic pecking order.
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| social reconstructionism | See reconstructionism.
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| sociogram | A diagram that is constructed to record social interactions, such as which children interact frequently and which are isolates.
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| Socratic method | An educational strategy attributed to Socrates in which a teacher encourages a student's discovery of truth by questions.
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| special education | Programs and instruction for children with physical, mental, emotional, or learning disabilities or gifted students who need special educational services to achieve at their ability level.
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| spirituality | A personal and pluralistic view of life's meaning, broader than any particular religion, but encompassing many ideas common to all religions. It includes beliefs and activities that renew, lift up, comfort, heal, and inspire both ourselves and others.
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| standards-based education | Education that specifies precisely what students should learn, focuses the curriculum and instruction (and perhaps much more) on meeting those standards, and provides continual testing to see if the standards are achieved.
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| state adoption | The process by which members of a textbook adoption committee review and select the books used throughout a state. Advocates of this process say that it results in a common statewide curriculum that unites educators on similar issues and makes school life easier for students who move within the state. Critics charge that it gives too much influence to large states and results in a "dumbed down" curriculum.
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| state board of education | The state education agency that regulates policies necessary to implement legislative acts related to education.
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| state department of education | An agency that operates under the direction of the state board of education, accrediting schools, certifying teachers, appropriating state school funds, and so on.
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| stepfamilies | Relationships created when divorced or widowed parents remarry, creating a whole set of new relationships, including stepchildren, stepgrandparents, and stepparents.
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| stereotypes | Absolute statements applied to all members of a group, suggesting that members of a group have a fixed, often inherited set of characteristics.
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| stereotype threat | A measure of how social context, such as self-image, trust in others, and a sense of belonging, can influence academic performance.
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| street academies | Alternative schools designed to bring dropouts and potential dropouts, often inner-city youths, back into the educational mainstream.
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| student-initiated questions | Content-related questions originating from the student yet consisting of only a small percentage of the questions asked in a typical class.
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| superintendent of schools | The executive officer of the local school district.
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| taxonomy | A classification system of organizing information and translating aims into instructional objectives.
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| teacher centers | Sites to provide training to improve teaching skills, inform teachers of current educational research, and develop new curricular programs.
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| teacher flexibility | The capability to adapt a variety of skills, abilities, characteristics, and approaches, according to the demands of each situation and the needs of each student.
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| Teach for America | A program that places unlicensed college graduates in districts with critical teacher shortages as they work toward attaining a teacher license.
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| Tenth Amendment | The constitutional Amendment that establishes that areas not specifically mentioned in the Constitution as federal responsibilities are left to state authority. Since education is not mentioned, each state is free to create its own school system.
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| tenure | A system of employment in which teachers, having served a probationary period, acquire an expectancy of continued employment. The majority of states have tenure laws.
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| Tesseract | A private company that works in the public school sector, attempting to improve school efficiency and student achievement, while making a profit. Formerly called Educational Alternatives.
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| textbook adoption states | States, most often those in the South and West, that have a formal process for assessing, choosing, and approving textbooks for school use.
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| Title I | Section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that provides federal funds to supplement local education resources for students from low-income families.
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| Title VII | of the Civil Rights Act (1964) Section that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
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| Title IX | A provision of the 1972 Educational Amendments that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program receiving federal financial assistance.
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| tracking | The method of placing students according to their ability level in homogeneous classes or learning experiences. Once a student is placed, it may be very difficult to move up from one track to another. The placements may reflect racism, classism, or sexism.
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| traditional inculcation | An approach to moral education that transmits a common set of values to students.
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| transitional bilingual education | A bilingual education program in which students are taught for a limited time in their own language as well as English. The goal is to move students into English-only speaking classrooms.
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| trustee representatives | School board members viewed as representatives of the entire community, rather than of the narrower interests of a particular group or neighborhood. This conception of a school board member's role differs from the delegate approach.
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| tuition tax credits | Tax reductions for parents or guardians of children attending public or private schools.
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| United States Department of Education | Federal cabinet-level agency responsible for establishing national education policies, prohibiting discrimination in education, and collecting data on student achievement and other educational issues.
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| unobtrusive measurement | A method of observing a situation without altering it.
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| unremarked revolution | The unheralded but persistent move of schools away from formal tracking programs.
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| values clarification | A model, comprising various strategies, that encourages students to express and clarify their values on different topics.
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| virtual field trip | A non-physical visit to a distant site or event via the computer and the Internet.
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| virtual school | A type of distance education offered through the Internet. Virtual schools provide asynchronous learning and may offer specialized courses not typically found in traditional schools.
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| voucher | A coupon, issued by the government, representing money targeted for schools. In a voucher system, parents use educational vouchers to "shop" for a school. Schools receive part or all of their per-pupil funding from these vouchers. In theory, good schools would thrive and poor ones would close for lack of students.
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| wait time | The amount of time a teacher waits for a student's response after a question is asked and the amount of time following a student's response before the teacher reacts.
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| whole language approach | An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes the integration of language arts skills and knowledge, with a heavy emphasis on literature (as contrasted with a phonics approach).
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| women's studies | Originally created during the 1970s to study the history, literature, psychology, and experiences of women, topics typically missing from the traditional curriculum.
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| World Wide Web | Most common connection to the Internet; contains numerous sites that can be accessed by a Web browser.
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| zero reject | The principle that no child with disabilities may be denied a free and appropriate public education.
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| zero-tolerance policies | Rigorous rules that offer schools little or no flexibility in responding to student infractions related to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, violence, and weapons. These policies have been developed by both local school districts and a number of state legislatures, and in most cases, students who violate such policies must be expelled.
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| zone of proximal development | The area where students can move from what they know to new learning, a zone where real learning is possible.
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