Congress has the opportunity to move forward on education reform by reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, to ensure all children achieve their greatest potential. Unfortunately, it has yet to find the will to do so, to the detriment of American students and schools. ESEA is the largest and most significant federal…

In the passionate debates over providing equal educational opportunity for all children, it's frequently argued that large financial inequities create challenges for many public schools, particularly those in lower-income urban areas. This study compares the revenues and operating expenditures of Michigan's urban, suburban, town and rural school…

In the first half of nineteenth-century Europe, the founding fathers of the philanthropic network developed a specific network for the care of children at risk. This network eventually resulted in institutionalized solutions for the care of these children. In this article, three topics are looked at: the meaning of the general concept of networks…

This article examines the interaction between school accountability and local control over revenue raising and resource allocation. In particular, it asks whether accountability policies are more or less effective at improving student outcomes in states with stronger local control. Local control is operationalized with multiple measures, including…

This paper provides presidents and academic leadership with a body of literature that will strengthen the leaders' understanding of the unique behaviors and characteristics that are paramount to successful fund raising in the academic arena. A better understanding of transformational, transactional, and transformative leadership theory, and the…

Over the years, the author has discovered that learning how to write mini-grants helped him transition to writing successful major grants. In applying for a mini-grant, the author thinks of any grant going under $5,000. The important thing to understand is that many, many corporations and foundations have mini-grant programs. Accessing the…

No funding organization wants to give away money to an institution with no vision. The only way to successfully and deservingly secure outside funding for technology is through a clear vision of how those educational technologies will be used within one's classrooms and schools, and how those funds will jump start and support multiple school…

Purpose: This paper sets out to examine the contribution of employer co-funding of publicly-funded vocational education and training in the UK (i.e. training initiatives that are available to all qualified applicants but funded jointly by the public and private sectors). Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on qualitative research…

Bemoaning the quality of education research--and offering prescriptions for improving it--have become popular pastimes in recent years. Now, some scholars say, it is time to take a hard look at the consumers who use, underwrite, ignore, or misconstrue the knowledge born from studies in the field. Often, political concerns dilute the impact of…

This paper assesses the potential of environmental co-operatives (EC) to deliver environmental benefits and an integrated and strengthened rural economy in the UK. It is based on research into Dutch EC, which have about 10,000 members, of which a quarter are non-farmers. The paper details the benefits EC have delivered to their members, the Dutch…

Immersive Education is a multimillion-dollar project devoted to build virtual-reality software exclusively for education within commercial and nonprofit fantasy spaces like Second Life. The project combines interactive three-dimensional graphics, Web cameras, Internet-based telephony, and other digital media. Some critics have complained that…

This paper offers a case study of the evolution of what is believed to be the earliest UK longitudinal ethnography in the field of education--and discussion of some issues arising. As such, it is a contribution to the contemporary methodological development of qualitative longitudinal research. The Identity and Learning Programme tracked the…

This article compares the extended family integration of Euro and Mexican American women and men and assesses the importance of class and culture in explaining ethnic differences. Using National Survey of Families and Households II data (N = 7,929), we find that ethnic differences depend on the dimension of integration. Mexican Americans exhibit…

Several papers were presented during the 11th Annual National Indian Education Association (NIEA) Legislative Summit. This volume contains the following briefing papers presented during the summit: (1) Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind Strengthen Native American Education; (2) The Johnson O'Malley Program; (3) Legislation to Address…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Teaching 21st Century Skills: What Does It Look Like in Practice? (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting and Spending: Schools and Districts Share Lessons on the Effective Uses of…