There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, while others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare…

Technological advances in communication and transportation have increased educational opportunities for post-secondary education students around the globe. Individuals and information now travel quicker and cheaper between countries and continents. Post-secondary institutions no longer have a local, jurisdictional or even domestic focus; their…

Despite enormous growth in the study of learners' cognitive processes, relatively little is known about how learners reason about social phenomena and issues involved in disciplines, such as history. Yet, according to scholars the process could hardly be more important, and it demands redress and scientific explanation. To contribute to the…

Communities of Practice offer state agency personnel a promising approach for engaging stakeholder groups in collaboratively solving complex and often persistent problems in special education. Communities of Practice can help state agency personnel drive strategy, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop members' professional…

This project--funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts--is an effort to address the performance of state higher education systems, and the public sectors within them, relative to their levels of funding. The measure used for funding and those used for performance are described. The data used throughout this study were compiled and analyzed to answer…

Over the last two decades, there has been a surge in public policies seeking to give low-income families more choice about where to send their children to school. These changes in policy have both reflected and accommodated an influx of new educational providers, including school operators, technology firms, back-office service providers, tutors,…

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California…

A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that high-skill jobs that require advanced learning will make up almost half of all job growth in the United States by 2014. Present trends indicate that there will be a dearth of adequately educated workers to fill these new jobs: as a result of changing demographics, rising costs and…

The set of two case studies examines the supports for instructional improvement in two school districts through the experience of individual teachers who are trying to change their practice in accordance with the district's reform work. Our overarching research question for these case studies was: What supports this teacher in changing his or her…

This paper analyzes the trends, underlying factors and implications of the trade in higher education services. The term "trade in higher education" refers to the purchase of higher education services from a foreign country using domestic resources. The objectives of this paper are to provide policy makers in developing countries, World Bank staff,…

This report offers an examination of the impact of Nebraska Reading First on comprehension across the first three years of implementation in the state. Grade level performance is defined as performance at or above the 40th percentile using grade level standards. Within each grade level section reading comprehension achievement is shown for all…

"Engaging Places" is a partnership between the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), English Heritage, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), in association with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF--formerly DfES) and the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC). It was set up by…

This paper focuses on "technologies for voice" that are related to the self-determination of youth with developmental disabilities. The authors describe a self-determination model that values family-focused, community-referenced pedagogies employing "new media" to give voice to youth and their families. In line with the adage that a picture is…

This article critically analyzes challenges that may influence whether evidence-based practice (EBP) enjoys more success than previous efforts to improve the integration of practice and research in social work education. Key challenges include: (1) alleviating disparities in how EBP is being defined by social work educators; (2) maximizing the…

In this article I describe a number of ways in which non-western cultures have adopted and used western educational approaches, forming an illustrative typology of these adaptations. I provide an illustration(s) of each category in the typology, briefly presenting the history of the category, detailing its modern state, and discussing selected…