Charter schools are promoted as a contemporary American invention. But the documented history reveals that charter schools actually evolved over the centuries in England, structured to reflect the highly stratified British class system. The last stand to hold onto the charter-school system in England was waged by Margaret Thatcher under the banner of “parental choice.” But her campaign went down to defeat as the British public opted for the American-style, inclusive and comprehensive secondary school. The charter-school movement raises the clear and present danger of splitting up the American unitary, comprehensive school system at cost to the American democratic experience.

The evolution of curriculum development in schools reflects the evolution of knowledge and civilization itself. What knowledge is of most worth? How shall it be codified, structured, and transformed into curriculum for the acculturation and growth of successive generations so that the future is better than the past? How can the school be designed and equipped as a productive and democratic learning environment? These are some of the questions that intersect with the fundamental factors of the education process, namely the learner, the curriculum, and the society. When these fundamental factors are set in opposition or isolation, the possibility for educational progress is impeded or set back. Embracing the idea of progress and the science of education, the experimentalist movement over the first half of the 20th century sought to dissolve the dualisms carried from ancient Greece (e.g., mind/body, intellect/emotion, abstract/concrete knowledge) in endeavoring to create new designs and structures for curriculum synthesis to meet the democratic prospect and the universal educational needs of the rising generation. In sum, the experimentalists reconstructed curriculum development into a process of problem solving for educational progress, holding to the paradigmatic principle that the structure and function of the school curriculum must be in congruence with the nature and needs of the learner for effective living in the democratic society. The paradigm holds the fundamental factors in the education process as necessarily interdependent and in harmony. The curriculum paradigm explains why so many reforms imposed on the schools predictively are destined for failure simply because they set the fundamental factors in conflict with each other. The march of democracy in global affairs will require a resurgence of the progressive vision for the curriculum of the democratic classroom and school in which students are engaged openly with each other and with the teacher in investigative cooperation, collaboration, and consultation.

The writings of Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913) on education over the last two decades of the 19th century were almost lost until they were brought to the attention of John Dewey (1859-1952). Ward had prophesied that the 20th century would require three universal curriculums to meet the American democratic prospect. Ward acknowledged that nobody knew what structure or form the three universal curriculums would take. It would be left to John Dewey and his fellow experimentalists to provide the answer.

The author explores the mystery of how and why John Dewey's The Sources of a Science of Education came to be lost or forgotten, and why that work is still so important today.

Documentary history reveals that charter schools are a vestige of the socially divided school system of 19th-century England. The current charter school movement in the United States raises the danger to American democracy of splitting up the U.S. school structure and creating a separate system of schools for other people's children.

Successive nationalizing programs for school reform in the United States have centered on external high-stakes testing and charter schools aimed at closing the widening achievement gap between children of socioeconomically disadvantaged and advantaged families. But the chief cause of the achievement gap is poverty, and poverty cannot be cured by high-stakes tests. Charter schools raise a clear and present danger of splitting up the inclusive unitary school structure—a uniquely American invention.

The USA was the first nation to attain universal secondary education through the creation of a unitary school structure capped by the uniquely American institution, the comprehensive or cosmopolitan high school. Other leading democratic nations adopted the comprehensive model, but not until well after mid-twentieth century. The modern movement for charter schools was advocated by President George H.W. Bush in America 2000, issued in 1991, and subsequently expanded in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, signed by President George W. Bush. The charter school movement, coupled with nationalized testing, was to gain great momentum under President Barack Obama in Race to the Top—raising a clear and present danger of splitting up the school system. Once ubiquitous in the elementary school, shop classes have been virtually eliminated while the studio arts—the subjects that children love—have been cut back drastically. Once regarded as professional malpractice, teaching-to-the test is now a ‘best practice’, with deleterious consequences for the school curriculum, and in making decisions on pupil placement, teacher tenure and school evaluation. There is an abiding taboo in the education profession against exposing the invalidity of external, high-stakes, standardized tests in making such decisions.

schools are in trouble, declares John Goodlad in the opening words of _A Place Called School, his penetrating study of schooling. But in the course of the history of American public education, there has never been a time when the public schools were not in trouble. Each epoch in the development of American public education has been marked by new waves of a t tack and new demands for reform only to be followed by counterreforms to undo the excesses of the predecessor reforms. The new at tacks and demands have an old ring about them. Somehow it seems as though we have been there before , that we are verifying Mark Twain's Law of Periodic Repetition, Everything that has happened once must happen again and again and again — 2 and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thing in its own Yet the at tacks cannot be taken lightly because so much is at stake, and because each period is marked by a successive generation to be educated. Each new era of reform or counterreform has become a kind of ceremony in which our school leaders await the signal indicating the dominant tide to ride in a particular period. In the words of Kafka, break into the temple, and drink the sacrificial chalices dry. This occurs repeatedly, again and again; finally it can be reckoned on beforehand and becomes a part of the ceremony. The Leopards have broken in and have done their thing, and so once again we can begin our ceremony here today. If our response is to be more than ceremonial, if our re sponse is to be construct ive, we shall have to reconstruct the educational situation — giving due recognition to the great accomplishments of the oldest public school system the world has known and the f irst system to be committed to open-access secondary and higher education. At the same time, we shall need to reconstruct the educational situation with a view

Education in a free society requires that students are provided with a provocative and thoughtful curriculum and learning materials that will prepare them to function as productive adult citizens in a diverse and changing world. Textbooks and curricular materials that engage the rising generation in the study of social ideas, problems, and issues are often targets for censorship. Advocates of the "new" media apply pressure to have computer-based instructional (CBI) materials utilized in schools, and make claims of CBI's superiority over other materials and forms of instruction. Despite the extravagant claims made for computer-based instruction pointing to its alleged superiority over other instructional media, a study of the research and documented cases of censorship demonstrates that there are no censorship incidents directed at computer programs, whereas the censorship of school textbooks, school library books, and other "conventional" curriculum materials is epidemic. This raises fundamental questions about the limitations and realistic uses of computer-based instruction in the schools of a democratic society. Policy makers and administrators who are responsible for making decisions about the curriculum in public schools are often under pressure to implement new technology-based instructional programs, with the hope that computer technology will somehow improve the educational process at reduced cost and greater efficiency. With the advent 30 years ago of relatively inexpensive microcomputers, there has been a dramatic increase in the accessibility to and use of CBI materials in America's schools. Textbooks, anthologies, literary works of fiction and non-fiction, and other print materials have been the traditional materials used for classroom instruction, and those that have been developed to inform and challenge students with the social problems that confront our world have often been targeted for censorship. Extravagant claims have been made that the computer is a more effective and efficient instructional tool than traditional print materials and might even be able to replace the teacher. Yet these claims have not been substantiated in the research literature. This study investigates why computer-based instruction has been virtually immune from the eyes and arms of the censor, whereas censorship continues to impact the textbook and other print media with the exception of the workbook and worksheet. Is the computer being used predominantly as an electronic workbook? This question raises profound implications for the schools in a free society. The study finds that over the past 30 years there has not been a single documented case of censorship directed at computer-based instructional materials, while censorship targeting other instructional materials continues unabated, with hundreds of censorship attempts recorded in the professional literature each year. The study also reveals virtually no mention of censorship in professional research studies, journals, and research handbooks. This lack of research underscores the disturbing avoidance by educational professionals and researchers to engage those who would censor instructional materials for the nation's students. Perhaps the true import of this study is as a "call to arms" for those who are willing to see the significant implications to a free society posed by censorship and the long-term dilution of the curriculum provided to our country's children.

A novel corrugated composite core, referred to as a hierarchical corrugation, has been developed and tested experimentally. Hierarchical corrugations exhibit a range of different failure modes depending on the geometrical properties and the material properties of the structures. In order to understand the different failure modes the analytical strength model, developed in part 1 of this paper, was used to make collapse mechanism maps for the different corrugation configurations. If designed correctly, the hierarchical structures can have more than 7 times higher weight specific strength compared to its monolithic counter part. The difference in strength arises mainly from the increase in buckling resistance of the sandwich core members compared to the monolithic version. The highest difference in strength is seen for core configurations with low overall density. As the density of the core increases, the monolithic core members get stockier and more resistant to buckling and thus the benefits of the hierarchical structure reduces.

2-hydroxybiphenyl 3-monooxygenase (HbpA; EC 1.14.13.44) from Pseudomonas azelaica HBP1 was produced in Escherichia coli both as native and SeMet-labelled protein. The two enzymes were purified to homogeneity and crystallized by the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. The crystals belong to the monoclinic space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 108.6, b = 196.8, c = 79.3 A, beta = 97.7 degrees for the native protein and a = 108.3, b = 196.8, c = 79.0 A, beta = 97.8 degrees for SeMet HbpA. Crystal-packing considerations led to the assumption of two HbpA subunits per asymmetric unit, which corresponds to a V(M) value of 3.3 A(3) Da(-1) and a solvent content of 62%. The crystals were radiation-sensitive and only had a lifespan of about 120 s when exposed to synchrotron radiation on an undulator beamline. To obtain complete data sets, data were collected from 23 native and 26 derivative crystals. The high-resolution limit was 2.0 A for native and 2.25 A for SeMet HbpA.

The engines that drive market forces are inappropriate for the schools, Mr. Tanner warns. Aside from our history, which demonstrates the necessity for public regulation of these forces so as to protect the democratic public interest, there is the need to recognize that the mission of business is maximizing profits, while the mission of public education is serving the social good.

Some of the proposals in America 2000 (reproduced in Goals 2000) need to be questioned -- even challenged -- by our profession in view of the powerful and readily available contravening sources of evidence, including the Sandia Report, Mr. Tanner avers. WITH A NEW Administration in Washington, one might be tempted to conclude that the prescriptions in America 2000, President Bush's strategy for school reform, will no longer be taken seriously and will not be implemented. However, we must remember that America 2000 grew out of a meeting of the nation's governors and that, while President Bush convened the meeting, Bill Clinton -- then governor of Arkansas -- played a key role in defining the national education goals for the year 2000. Although this does not place President Clinton in the same camp as his predecessor, we are at a critical turning point with regard to the federal role in public education, and some key reform proposals in America 2000 have been endorsed by the Clinton Administration, under the rubric of Goals 2000. These proposals need to be questioned -- and in some cases challenged -- by our profession in view of the powerful and readily available contravening sources of evidence. Indeed, we need to examine them in light of a national study of education that was effectively suppressed by the Bush Administration when the data contradicted most of the allegations, premises, and proposals on which America 2000 was based. Such suppression of information on virtually any national concern other than education would make sensational copy for the media. However, school-bashing makes better copy than a report revealing that the public schools are performing reasonably well and, indeed, as well as they ever have. Another question, which I will take up later, also needs to be addressed: Why is it that the professoriate in the social sciences and education hardly raised an eyebrow in connection with the suppression of a national study of education conducted by a federal department? Almost a quarter of a century ago, the sport of school-bashing became so pervasive and vituperative that Robert Hutchins, who was no believer in the great accomplishments of the public schools, felt impelled to devote an entire essay to the defense of the American public school. In Our Schools Must Stay Hutchins wrote: great campaign against the American public school has now reached the stage of overkill. It is impossible to believe that anything new can be added to the attacks already delivered . . . for the schools have been assailed from every conceivable direction, with every conceivable motive.[1] Hutchins could not have foreseen that new waves of school-bashing would be forthcoming. He couldn't have known that the school-bashing in the wake of the Cold War and space race, followed by the school-blaming during the period of social protest and disaffection of the 1960s and early 1970s, would in turn be followed by the back-to-basics attacks of the late 1970s and the decade-long litany of criticism that characterized the 1980s. Hutchins could not have imagined that a federal report issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 1983, under the alarming title A Nation at Risk, would use such shrill language in fixing the blame on the public schools for sabotaging our nation in the economic war with Japan and Germany. THE POLITICS OF TESTING The 1991 Annual Report of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), issued after America 2000 was released in April 1991, was devoted almost entirely to a glowing account of how ETS was engaged in helping our nation meet each of the national goals listed in America 2000. Not surprisingly, ETS is the contractor for the New American Achievement Tests in the five core areas of the curriculum set forth in America 2000, as well as for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (which issues our national report cards on student achievement in several academic subjects), the International Assessment of Educational Progress, and a host of other lucrative testing programs. …