Merit pay initiatives transparently alter the teaching profession and goings-on within classrooms, and thereby promise to stoke the self-interests of the two most prominent stakeholders in public education: teachers and parents. This memo summarizes the authors' ongoing efforts to empirically evaluate the extent to which public debates about merit…

This is a presentation made by the author to the staff of the members of the United States House of Representatives who are part of the STEM Caucus (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Caucus). The briefing was held in the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, DC on July 27, 2007. Also presenting were Harold Pratt and Dr.…

During the past 25 years, the country witnessed a dramatic transformation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Actions by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Congress, and the National Assessment Governing Board fundamentally changed NAEP's role in federal educational policy and the nation's schools. Developed in the 1960s…

The public reaction to the proposal that the Australian government should reintroduce fees for tertiary education was surveyed in 1985. The influence of the proposal on the way people would vote in a federal election was also investigated. The fee would be between $900 and $1,500 per year for full-time tertiary education. As part of a McNair…

A study examined the participation of K-12 teachers from an urban school district in ongoing reform efforts, initiated under Massachusetts' 1993 Education Reform Act. The study's purpose was to identify the initial factors underlying changes in teacher attitudes, factors encouraging use of a new educational model, and the impact of reforms on…

Educational developments in the Middle East are analyzed in terms of the relationship between educational systems and developmental goals, especially manpower. Accompanying commentaries by Orin D. Parker and Joy W. Viola contend that educational quality has been sacrificed for quantity and that judgment of the system must be made within a cultural…

This paper describes the processes that one school district, the Visalia Unified School District (California), went through in establishing a standards-based assessment and accountability system using multiple methods. First the district's standards-based assessment and accountability system and the methods used to establish it are described, and…

Distance education is offered by 4 universities and 34 institutes/directorates in India. All open universities have been brought under the direction of the Indira Gandhi National Open University with regard to networking and determination of grants. The networking has avoided unnecessary duplication of course preparation costs. Distance education…

Reviewing enrollment trends in federal, public, and tribally controlled schools, this report examines progress in the education of American Indian handicapped children since the passage in 1975 of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The first section provides numbers of Indian handicapped and gifted and talented children receiving…

This document contains statistical data related to education. The booklet begins with an executive summary in English, Japanese, French, and Russian. The data is divided into nine general sections. The first section is population and contains: (1) world and regional perspectives; (2) sub-regional trends; (3) population perspectives by country; (4)…

Using a data set of 123 countries, the status of youth was analyzed on a global scale. The relative proportions of youth and adult populations and the opportunities nations provided their young people were evaluated. The implications of inter-age and intra-age stratification throughout the world are discussed. (SLD)

By focusing attention on comparative state performance in educating students, the Wall Chart (State Education Statistics, 1983) forced policymakers to consider state differences in student populations and the consequences of these differences for the outcomes of state systems of education. This paper presents the results of a study that attempted…