Community colleges are facing record enrollments and declining state and local funding, and many leaders of these institutions see increasing private support as critical for colleges. In 2010 the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) conducted a national survey of community college foundations. The survey, drafted with the…

Of concern is an international trend of students' increasing reluctance to choose science courses in both their final years of secondary school and tertiary levels of education. Research into the phenomenon indicates an influencing factor to be the "uninteresting curriculum" (OECD "2006") of school science. This paper presents…

This investigation examined the effects of providing choices among homework assignments on motivation and subsequent academic performance. Students were randomly assigned within classrooms either to receive a choice of homework options or to be assigned an option for all homework in one instructional unit. Conditions were reversed for a second…

In three Canadian provinces Catholic schools receive full government funding. This funding is premised on Catholic schools providing a distinctive educational environment based on the religious beliefs and practices of, among others, the teachers who work in these schools. A variety of official documents underline this notion of teachers playing…

Catholic schools are set apart from public schools in that Catholic schools aim to create for the school community an atmosphere enlivened by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity. Those who serve in Catholic schools, therefore, need to understand their role as unique, that is, faith driven. The purpose of this study was to assess this…

While LGBTQ people may no longer need be considered the "invisible minority," LGBTQ books are often taken to be positive or affirmative based on their mere inclusion of gay people as characters. The authors believe the catalog of LGBTQ texts must continue to increase in both quantity and quality and that teachers must explicitly engage students in…

Reviews the historical context of core journal lists, current uses in collection assessment, and existing methodologies for creating lists. Outlines two next generation core list projects developing new methodologies and integrating novel information/data sources to improve precision: a national-level core psychology list and the other a local…

In the context of increased expectations for accountability and growing controversy surrounding sabbatical leave programs, it is important to address seemingly simple questions of who is or should be awarded a sabbatical and what the rationale is for the award. The study attempted to offer some insight on these issues by examining the factors that…

The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of education for 30 years. This article examines how the myth concept has been used and develops neglected possibilities by asking: What happens when myths become incarnate, and how does this occur? In other words, what happens when…

The purpose of this article is to assert that there are classic African American children's books and to identify a sampling of them. The author presents multiple definitions of the term classic based on the responses of children's literature experts and relevant scholarship. Next, the manner in which data were collected and analyzed in regard to…

Elite public schools must use some method of selecting their students. Given the desirability of this scarce resource, these methods are closely scrutinized. Demographic and other changes in the school districts may make unstable procedures that were deemed successful at one point. This "recurring problem" is the subject of this article,…

The present article focuses on the choices teachers make when teaching Islamic religious education (IRE) in the town of Kisumu, Kenya. The data were collected through interviews with IRE teachers and participant observations in schools that offered IRE during several fieldwork sessions in the period 2003-2006. The fieldwork revealed that the…

After 100 years of discussion, response bias remains a controversial topic in psychological measurement. The use of bias indicators in applied assessment is predicated on the assumptions that (a) response bias suppresses or moderates the criterion-related validity of substantive psychological indicators and (b) bias indicators are capable of…

Teacher quality is the most crucial component in promoting student learning. For all the controversy about No Child Left Behind, one underlying emphasis of the federal law that is irrefutable is the importance placed on teacher quality. Therefore, a school organization committed to excellence must recruit and select outstanding teachers. The Obama…

In "Performance Incentives in Texas: Why Schools Chose Not to Participate"--a paper presented at the National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference in February--Jessica Lewis and Matthew Springer of Vanderbilt University examine why some Texas public schools declined to participate in the Texas Educator…