Almost 800 school business officials across the United States and Canada responded to the ASBO's 1996 survey on privatization. A vast majority of respondents opposed privatization of district functions (such as budgeting, accounting, and school operations), but approved contracting for architectural design and legal services. A major reason for…

Current knowledge about the cost and quality of full-time child care in centers and family care homes is summarized, with a discussion of parental attention to quality in making child care decisions. Data from two recent national studies suggest that quality is only modestly related to cost. (SLD)

Refereeing has been one means of ensuring the quality of publications in conventional scholarly publishing. However, conventional refereeing, with its reliance on traditional mail communication cannot meet the needs of electronic journal publishing. Examines the traditional refereeing system, describes a World Wide Web-based electronic form of…

Discusses the design of high quality Web-based online programs for higher education distance learning courses using the framework of grounded design. Uses an example of a graduate instructional technology course to focus on five areas of design decisions that best facilitate learning outcomes: psychological, pedagogical, technical, cultural, and…

This article discusses health fraud in special education. Psychopathology of health fraud, standards by which pseudoscience and quackery are defined, and the complexities of learning disorders are considered. A scale to determine whether an alternative therapy is reasonable is presented. Several popular therapies are used as examples. (Author/PB)

Although Columbia University's economic plight is familiar, debate over administrative and academic cutbacks is fiercer than most because of its history, decentralized administration, and unique problems of its Manhattan location. Relationships between faculty and administration have become strained as programs have been reduced, consolidated, or…

Fourteen essays on the National Assessment of Educational Progress offer a broad, systematic examination of technical and policy issues in national-level assessments. Topics include reading and mathematics trends, quality control, national achievement trends, state-level implementation and reporting, and federal review panel responses. (TJH)

Adaptation of the Total Quality Management approach to organizational improvement at Oregon State University involved creation of 10 pilot finance and administration teams and implementation of a 10-step problem-solving process. The approach has improved staff morale as well as client services. (MSE)

Reports on a study to determine the extent to which higher education institutions do or do not have policies requiring the collection of outcomes data; how useful chairs of economic departments perceive these measures to be; and whether or not institutions plan to enhance their assessment efforts in the future. (CFR)

Computer-assisted studies (CAS) attract foreign language professionals' attention due to the reliability of personal computers, the decreasing cost of available technology, and the new generation of students for whom electronic media are a familiar habitat. This article focuses on a project of the Defense Language Institute that produced over…

The Office for Standards in Education in Great Britain conducts inspections of provisions for students with special educational needs in primary and secondary regular and special schools. Implementation of these inspections requires development of well-trained inspectors with special education expertise and recognition of local education authority…

Examines studies that evaluate public access systems spanning experiments, field tests, and prototypes, and discusses quality control, cost-effectiveness, and issues for future research. Results suggest that system designers and developers need to be more selective in the type of evaluations they conduct; and there is a need for comparative…

Outlines a cornerstone in the development of adventure programming--the establishment of program accreditation standards (developed by the Association for Experimental Education and the Council for Outdoor Education). Describes the accreditation process and the design of an accreditation manual, and program accreditation services and accreditation…

Presents the quality-focused management (QFM) system and explains the departure QFM makes from established community college management practices. Describes the system's self-directed teams engaged in a continuous improvement process driven by customer demand and long-term commitment to quality and cost control. (13 references.) (MAB)

Suggests activities using large samples to simulate quality control processes in industry (specifically, manufacturing camera film). A series of small-group activities investigate the relationship of sample size to percent defective in batch sampling. Efficiency, cost of sampling, company reputation, and public relations are business factors…