Embarking upon a pre-university gap year is an increasingly popular option among British students. Drawing on Brown et al.'s work on positional conflict theory and the increased importance of the "economy of experience", this paper seeks to explore this growing popularity and argues that the gap year's enhanced profile raises important…

This article presents compelling reasons why President George W. Bush decided to double federal funds for agencies supporting physical-science research. The biggest beneficiaries of Mr. Bush's plan for 2008 would be the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. Those agencies, together with the National…

Current domestic and international comparative studies of student achievement in science are demonstrating that the U.S. needs to improve science education if it wants to remain competitive in the global economy. One of the causes of the poor performance of U.S. science education is the lack of students who have developed the formal thinking…

"Perspective" is a monthly e-newsletter presenting news and views from Achieve. This issue contains a report on the highlights of the fifth annual American Diploma Project (ADP) Network Leadership Team Meeting in Washington, D.C. Achieve's most well attended annual meeting, but also its most successful to date. While a variety of topics…

Although gender discrimination in all of its manifestations is often thought to be absent from higher education, academic institutions are hierarchical organizations that offer rewards, status and privilege, thereby rendering the status of women within these institutions politically and economically vulnerable. With each generation of female…

Through the voices of students and teachers at an elite coeducational private school and a school situated in a low socio-economic area, this paper explores the potential consequences for students of school alignment or misalignment with the structural imperatives of the broader Queensland senior secondary education system. Although the schools…

The Edward Jones Company recently initiated financial sponsorship of team-based competitions in six undergraduate business core classes at Baylor University. The challenges were chosen to take place in an introductory freshman business class, Managerial Accounting, Principles of Marketing, Corporate Finance, Operations Management, and Strategic…

The central economic competitiveness issue for the Obama administration is creating an aligned, 21st century public education system that prepares students,workers and citizens to triumph in the global skills race. On Jan. 20, 2009, the Obama administration will take command of the White House facing unprecedented challenges to the U.S. economy…

In recent years a number of reports have raised alarm over the deteriorating state of U.S. science and technology (S&T) competitiveness. But a recent report by the RAND Corporation, "U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology," argues that the U.S. continues to lead the world. RAND's report has been interpreted to suggest that the "clarion…

Twenty-five years after the seminal report "A Nation at Risk," American education remains in a state of crisis. Millions of students continue to pass through the public schools without mastering basic skills and knowledge. Policymakers and the public must recognize both this persistent failure and the attendant need for systemic reform…

The process of changing U.S. higher education institutions along a corporate model has been going on for several decades. It consists of changes, some open, some obscured, on various fronts: the erosion of tenure by attrition; the simultaneous increase in the use of contingent faculty; the rise in tuition; the dramatic decrease in federal and…

Efforts to introduce school choice have produced pressures on public schools to improve their performance. As a result, many public schools have embraced the total quality management principle of continuous improvement. In this article we explain that while this may be well intentioned, it may have perverse unintended consequences. A likely…

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and social sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise…

When charter schools first arrived on the American educational scene, few observers suspected that within two decades thousands of these schools would be established, serving almost a million and a half children across forty states. The widespread popularity of these schools, and of the charter movement itself, speaks to the unique and chronic…

In 2009 Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system, in common with so many other areas of public policy and the economy, was preoccupied by the effects of the global economic downturn and, like other sectors, sought to reposition itself to deal with the economic fallout, while anticipating its role in the recovery. Yet, as…