In this article, the author discusses her personal experience of coming up with a mission statement for her library. A significant part of that goal was to identify what a best-practice library looked like so that she could emulate the model in her library. The entire process is described in this article.

This paper chronicles the development and updating of a visual arts education policy paper produced by the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC). The first statement was drafted and approved by the membership and published in 1995. The revision process for the second statement began in the spring of 2003 and was reviewed by the board of…

The Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in Ahmedabad, India, got a running start on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) (2005-2015) by hosting the first international conference of the decade January 18-20, 2005. The attendance of 900 educators from 50 countries exceeded expectations. Not only did these…

The Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) is among the oldest professional education organizations in the world and the only international organization of its kind that focuses on the development of the whole child from birth through early adolescence. Given the current sad state of world affairs and the plight of millions of…

This article attempts a critique of the higher education policy overview, with a particular view to how policy is made through that process. The higher education sector in Australia has become reliant for the answers to its most important policy questions on a process that has not delivered adequate answers, and which becomes less likely to…

The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) has served as a voice for quality assurance and promulgation of standards in higher education for over 25 years. CAS was established to promote inter-association efforts to address quality assurance, student learning, and professional integrity. CAS includes membership of over…

After reviewing institutional records for more than 3,000 students, the authors consider how new members of Greek organizations at a Midwestern university performed academically when compared to non-Greeks, in terms of their predicted versus actual grade point averages and whether joining during the first or second semester made a difference in…

When the United Nations General Assembly authorized holding the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, it was hardly a secret--or even a point in dispute--that progress in implementing sustainable development had been disappointing since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. With poverty deepening and environmental…

The U.S. civilian space program is focused on planning for a new round of human missions to the Moon and, later, perhaps, to Mars. These plans are intended to realize a "vision" for exploration articulated by President George W. Bush. It is important to examine this "vision" in the broader context of 21st-century space exploration, which is a…

This paper discusses the technology position statement and guidelines drawn from the National Educational Technology Standards. This position paper and guidelines are grounded in the theory that content must come before technology. In other words, technology should be thought of in terms of its effect on the teaching and learning of social…

In this message from the ITEA president, he states that it is imperative that ITEA convey a shared mission and philosophy, foster leadership, and grow a large audience of supportive professional members while remaining agile enough to withstand generational and political changes that naturally occur over time. The strategic plan of ITEA focuses on…

Laboratory investigations are essential for the effective teaching and learning of science. A school laboratory investigation ("lab") is an experience in the laboratory, classroom, or the field that provides students with opportunities to interact directly with natural phenomena or with data collected by others using tools, materials, data…

To help policymakers and others measure the school readiness of New Jersey children, the Association for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) participated in the national School Readiness Indicators Initiative, funded by The Packard Foundation. Guided by research on what helps children succeed in school, ACNJ and various private and public New Jersey…

School-based management (SBM) has become a very popular movement over the past decade. The World Bank Education Team's SBM work program emerged out of a need to define the concept more clearly, review the evidence, support impact assessments in various countries, and provide some initial feedback to teams preparing education projects. During the…

Data from the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction show that Asians are the largest non-European teachers group teaching in Washington (2004). One thousand, three hundred, and thirty-three, full-time classroom teachers identify themselves as Asian. In Washington classrooms, there are more Asian teachers than Black…