Strong financial management is a strategy for strategic planning success in student affairs. It is crucial that student affairs professionals understand the necessity of linking their strategic planning with their financial management processes. An effective strategic planner needs strong financial management skills to implement the plan over…

Background: This study was conducted to empirically evaluate specific human, curricular, and material resources that maximize student opportunities for physical activity during physical education (PE) class time. A structure-process-outcome model was proposed to identify the resources that influence the frequency of PE and intensity of physical…

In this article the author offers a few interim thoughts on how those of us campaigning for a comprehensive future should think about, and publicly respond to, the education policies of the current Coalition government and the new direction of the Labour Party. (Contains 1 note.)

With most school districts all over the country scrambling to cover educational funding shortfalls and increasing class sizes, at least one state governor is publicly questioning why all school districts don't contract custodial services. School district administrators are facing the increasing budget cuts pressure to consider (or reconsider)…

The vast majority of public employees--including teachers--are enrolled in defined-benefit pension plans. These plans are usually the product of state legislation that determines eligibility, benefit formulas, employer and employee contributions, and how payments will be calculated when an employee retires or leaves the system. Once an employee…

This case study examines St. Malachy, an urban Catholic elementary school primarily serving children traditionally marginalized by race, class, linguistic heritage, and disability. As a private school, St. Malachy serves the public good by recruiting and retaining such traditionally marginalized students. As empirical studies involving Catholic…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

Reform-minded leaders of Qatar, who have embarked on a sweeping reform of their nation's education system, asked RAND to evaluate the education finance system that has been adopted and to offer suggestions for improvements. The authors analyze the system's evolution and resource allocation patterns between 2004 and 2006 and develop analytic tools…

Qatar's education reform, which included implementation of a new finance system, appears to be providing schools with adequate funding but is still struggling with issues of transparency and swift policy shifts that have been difficult to accommodate. [For full report, "Developing a School Finance System for K-12 Reform in Qatar", see…

Strategic planning is a common tool utilized at colleges and universities to assist in achieving institutional goals. Leaders in higher education have taken best practices from corporate management and adapted them in an effort to develop comprehensive approaches to institutional planning, assessment and accountability. Various models for planning…

The recent rise in globalization has brought forth a global wave of academic competitiveness, which has taken its strongest hold in East Asia. In order to attain world class status, Taiwan's Ministry of Education (MoE) initiated a project called Plan to Develop First-class Universities and Top-level Research Centers. The project is often coined…

Negotiations present individuals with a paradox. On the one hand, individuals are expected via social norms and formal regulations to be honest and straightforward in their negotiations. On the other hand, individuals who mislead their negotiation counterpart are often rewarded with more favorable settlements. The authors investigate this paradox…

This article reports an evaluation of a reading remediation program delivered to 151 high-risk students in a public school setting. Implementation fidelity was assessed by the amount of time each child was exposed to the program. Despite receiving fewer than the recommended hours of instruction, analyses of standard achievement scores indicated…

Maryland's governor, Martin J. O'Malley, didn't get much of his legislative agenda through the General Assembly this year, but he did succeed on one front: preserving enough state aid for the public-university system to stave off a tuition increase for the fourth consecutive year. Like politicians in several states, Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, made…

This article addresses accountability issues that affect music education policy and implementation in the neoliberal education system. Using examples from education reform in Ontario, Canada, the author argues that two forms of accountability imbalances fostered by the neoliberal state--hierarchical answerability over communicative reason and…