Literacy corps Iran's gamble to conquer illiteracy

Summary TheLiteracy Corps program was launched by Iranian government officials in October 1962 as a radical departure from both traditional and modern approaches to illiteracy among rural children. The program has been rapidly formulated and implemented in the midst of many public statements by government officials. As the program has evolved from formulation, to training, to implementation, this observer has grown increasingly skeptical. As a plan it has been hastily conceived and poorly financed. The military flavor that has been maintained in both selecting and training the teachers seems quite useless to, if not destructive of, an effective educational program. The consistent failure to relate the literacy program to an over-all program of teacher training and elementary school development marks Iran'sLiteracy Corps as a stop-gap measure rather than a bold, basic attack on the country's problem of educational opportunity for all its people.

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Literacy corps — Irans Wagnis im Feldzug gegen das Analphabetentum

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Literacy corps — l'aventure de l'Iran dans sa campagne contre l'analphabetisme

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Data for this analytical report were gathered by the author while in Iran as a Fulbright Professor at The University of Tehran, 1962–63.     

Responsibility and School Choice in Education

Consider the following argument for school choice, based on an appeal to the virtues of the market: allowing parents some measure of choice over their particular children's education ultimately serves the interests of all children, because creating a market mechanism in state education will produce improvements through the same pressures that lead to greater efficiency and quality when markets are deployed in more familiar contexts. The argument fails, because it is committed to a principle of equal concern, which (after analysis) implies that a market in education is acceptable only if it is right to hold children disadvantaged by their parents' poor market choices substantively responsible for the fact. Since that claim is untenable, the market‐based argument for school choice not only fails, but also turns out to rely on principles which in fact condemn the very policy it was supposed to support.     

EDUCATIONAL BROKERAGE: A MECHANISM FOR ESTABLISHING ELDERS AS EDUCATORS

Although frequently underutilized as educators, older adults can be valuable resources to universities, colleges, and communities. This paper examines some reasons for underutilization of elders and suggests an educational brokerage system as a means of maximizing their educational contributions and rewards. A case study of an emerging brokerage system is presented.     

General Mass Communications

Ben H. Bagdikian's The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media.

R. Buckminster Fuller, I Seem To Be A Verb (Bantam D5235, $1.65).     

Hierarchical task analysis ‐ An approach for diagnosing students’ conceptual difficulties

Pupils’ conceptual difficulties in scientific problem‐solving are examined on the basis of their performance on complex tasks and on the simple tasks of which the complex tasks are composed. A theoretical analysis reveals that identical errors on a complex task are not necessarily due to the same errors on the associated component tasks. This is illustrated by reference to actual research findings. The educational implications of this finding are discussed.