The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has developed a new means of financing a portion of PBS' national programing--the "Station Program Cooperative" (SPC). Established in April 1974, the SPC is the product of a multifaceted attack on three critical and interrelated problems: (1) an increasing scarcity of funds for national programing;…

In 1928, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial granted funds to the University of Cincinnati to establish a child study and parent education program for African-Americans. This paper traces the origin of the idea for this program to a special relationship between the family of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and Spelman College, an African-American…

This paper explores an innovative approach to funding school improvement programs. It looks at a series of programs initiated by the National College of Education in collaboration with several corporations and foundations in the Chicago metropolitan area. The evolution of the College's participation in these endeavors is reported as well as the…

This paper briefly defines parent involvement in education, outlines several factors that are fueling new state interest in programs to strengthen families, describes programmatic initiatives in several states, and examines some of the issues states have faced in their efforts to craft effective community-based programs that are responsive to…

The present financial crisis in the world's developing nations, as evidenced by the external debt situation in Latin America, is forcing governmental decision makers to make some very hard choices regarding the financing of education. In times of such hard choices, it is important that those responsible for funding education in developing nations…

High-quality leisure education programs for the elderly are few in number considering the size of the older population. Most existing programs are probably inappropriate for the elderly age group. Better perspectives and understanding on the part of leisure educators is needed. Leisure education programs for the elderly may become more plentiful…

The anchor of successful writing-across-the-curriculum programs is an organized nucleus of features called the four Ps: planning, proposing, preparing, and prototyping. Planning requires organization and connections among the mechanisms of designing and implementing both program activities and evaluation designs. It should begin at least two years…

Intercollegiate debate programs are facing a continuing demand for excellence without any guarantee of adequate resources. Important considerations for program administrators include: be positive, not negative; look for opportunities to build alliances with political science or philosophy departments; be a responsible administrator; and deal with…

The recent conservative trend in educational policy is addressed in this paper which begins with a description of 10 specific types of threats to the instructional development movement that can evolve from an excessively conservative environment. These threats are named as follows: (1) scapegoat; (2) baby-with-the-bathwater; (3) chronological…

Primary health and nutrition have been linked with communication in a variety of well-publicized projects. This partnership between communication and nutrition was made necessary by the confrontation between an expanded demand for services and limited resources for meeting the demand. Senior officials have a substantial role to play in seeing that…

After approximately 20 years of developing collaborative delivery systems for children with disabilities, educational researchers have developed an extensive knowledge base. In an effort to identify potential strategies for developing and institutionalizing school-linked coordinated service delivery systems for at-risk youth, this paper examines…

The first step in an effort to expand a writing laboratory program calls for the director and the current staff to investigate the areas in which expansion is desirable and can feasibly occur. This can be done by asking students to identify disciplines in which they would use additional tutorial help, or by addressing the faculty, especially those…

This paper comments on program and policy issues concerning school-age day care. The issues discussed are as follows: (1) what kind of day care provision do school-age children prefer? (2) what constitutes a high quality day care program? and (3) how can parents, the general public, and politicians be persuaded to support and finance day care…

Providing comprehensive services for the elderly in local communities presents planners and potential users with a complex set of problems. The development of new or expanded service to the elderly was examined within an ecologically informed resource dependency model to assess the effect on service expansion of organizational maintenance factors…

This case study describes the evolution of a center of pedagogy in El Paso, Texas, to prepare teachers in and for exemplary schools, sustain dialogue among partners, pursue the center's agenda, and critique and revise the undertaking. The paper provides a historical context, examining the role of state public policy and outside grant funding and…