An Agenda for Improving the Teaching of Economics.

This article focuses on the proposal of the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education to improve the teaching of economics in the United States. A planning committee and a group of consultants from economics, psychology and education will be assembled to plan a pilot-plan operation. The aim is that over a period of five years a version of the working model would be introduced on a continuing self-sustaining basis in at least ten graduate departments. The committee has proposed a series of reading books, which probably will be published annually by Richard Irwin Inc., under the editorship of an individual to be chosen with the approval of the committee. To help meet the experimentation needs of the economic teachers, the Journal of Economic Education was established. This journal has a subscription list of over 2,000, and has published a number of very interesting articles. The committee is working again with the Joint Council and has tentative plans for a summer 1974 workshop on research in economic education for new Ph.D's going to their teaching posts. If undertaken, it will include perhaps twenty-five new Ph.D's who are particularly interested in research to evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches and techniques in teaching.