Background/Context: School closure is becoming an increasingly common policy response to underperforming urban schools. Districts typically justify closure decisions by pointing to schools' low performance on measures required by No Child Left Behind. Closures disproportionately fall on schools with high percentages of poor and working-class…

Borders--places where nations, people, and their cultures come together--are interesting spaces. The meeting may be friendly enough, but borders are by their nature places of "otherness," where those who are moving from one place to another are often conceived of as not belonging. High-ability students in this state of…

Schoolwide support for higher achievement is essential. Students need a nurturing environment where they feel secure about learning, where the goal is success for every student and where students are confident they will receive mentoring and encouragement to prepare for their futures. Many schools are reinventing themselves to motivate students to…

This study examined the relationship between principals' leadership styles and teachers' job satisfaction. A demographic survey, the School-Level Environment Questionnaire (Fisher and Fraser, 1990), and the Job Descriptive Index (Smith, et, al. 1969) were administered to 232 teachers representing the San Antonio Independent School District. The…

This monograph discusses how to make England's further education (FE) system genuinely responsive to learner demand, as well as stable, affordable, and of high quality. It looks at how a demand-driven system can be organised and funded, at what is required of governments, and what can be left to learners themselves and to the education and…

The innovative educational communication interventions described in this paper include the use of bi-lingual, low literacy level websites and training created by low income Latina women to increase access to health care, health information, and the internet. We focus on one grassroots intervention, aimed at increasing access to health care for…

Foster parents face many challenges in caring for children in foster care. Perhaps the major challenge is to achieve a caring environment for children who have experienced trauma and much change. Thus, this article provides ideas and strategies for nurturing foster parents toward a caring relationship with their children.

Introductory activities create a positive environment, enhance performance and set the tone for the rest of the program. Taking time for the group to get comfortable and learn each others' names will pay off later. An engaging opening activity designed to get the group interacting and sharing names, backgrounds and goals in an intriguing way can…

Hipolito-Delgado and Lee's article entitled "Empowerment Theory for the Professional School Counselor: A Manifesto for What Really Matters" represents an important contribution to the school counseling literature for two reasons: (1) It helps to expand a growing knowledge base related to the work school counselors can do to foster the…

The paper presents a conceptual framework and methodology developed by the authors to create systematic empirical basis to monitor important social indicators. The focus here is on ways to employ indicators of victimization in school in order to inform a range of constituencies interested in the well being of school children. The paper outlines…

This article describes the characteristics of patrons with learning disabilities (LD) and how these characteristics might affect library use. The lack of services for college patrons who have learning disabilities (LD) in this decade is much like the lack of adequate and appropriate services for high school patrons with LD in previous decades. The…

This article explores the experiences of 8 Inuit curriculum authors in the Nunavut Territory of Canada during the creation of "Inuuqatigiit: The Curriculum From the Inuit Perspective". The "Inuuqatigiit" authors' story is examined in terms of the group coming together, their work with elders, the educational community's…

Most will agree that the use of Internet to support teaching and learning has become a mainstay of management education with the widespread use of online content, discussion boards, document sharing, email, virtual classrooms, etc. But, whether it is effective or not is debatable. Sometimes learners and instructors report very positive…

Discusses the use of reflective practice through the keeping of learning journals by students in higher degree courses in education. Presents two models for reflecting on personal, academic, professional, and evaluative development, guidelines for the content of learning journals, and an evaluation of their contributions to notions of student…

A creative writing project for adults with such mental difficulties as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia resulted in increased self-confidence, self-awareness, group skills, creativity, and responsibility for ideas. The project was intended to serve as a bridge to further education. (SK)