A new report by the Alberta Chamber of Resources, a business group, and the provincial education ministry outlines the major findings from the study and proposes recommendations for businesses, educators, and policymakers.
Based on a study of secondary-school mathematics and science textbooks in Japan, the former West Germany, Hungary, and Alberta, as well as an examination of educational practices in the four lands, the study found serious problems with Alberta schools.
The other nations, it found, delivered more math and science to their students, earlier, and in greater depth than does Alberta. It also found that the two-thirds of Alberta students who do not proceed to postsecondary education are ill-prepared for the workplace, and that the school-to-work transition in the Canadian province is relatively poor.
Information about the study, “International Comparisons in Education--Curriculum, Values, and Lessons,’' is available from: Alberta Chamber of Resources, Suite 1410, Oxford Tower, 10235 101 St., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 3G1.
Thanks to a well-placed advertisement, the Milbank Memorial Library at Teachers College, Columbia University has acquired some 150 mathematics textbooks from the former Soviet Union.
Using a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the library has been building a collection of post-1970 volumes on international mathematics education. To find textbooks from the U.S.S.R., the library placed an ad in Novoye Russkoye Slovo (New Russian Daily), a Russian-language newspaper published in New York City, and bought books from recent immigrants who responded.
The new collection will bolster an extensive collection of pre-1970 math textbooks and provide a valuable resource for American researchers interested in discovering ways of improving math education, according to Jane P. Franck, the library’s director.
As part of a centennial celebration of the American Psychological Association, the Journal of Educational Psychology has launched a series of articles highlighting the history of the discipline.
The March 1992 issue includes a historical overview, as well as a short biography of one of the field’s “neglected pioneers’': Leta Stetter Hollingworth, who created the study of gifted education.
