Traces developments in Soviet education from the 1920s. Points out shifts in teaching practices and research, from the Leninist vision of labor collective schools to the Stalinist era's bureaucratic, counterrevolutionary tendencies. Argues current educational reform revisits the Leninist ideal of combining instruction with social production needs…

Arguments for school vouchers are beginning to have a cumulative effect with gains in a number of states. The political power that holds Washington to the public school orthodoxy is weakening before state movements toward public school choice and charter schools. (SLD)

Focuses on the Passive Resistance campaign of the English Nonconformists in response to the 1902 Balfour Education Act's public funding of denominational (primarily Anglican) schools. Examines penalties the Nonconformists paid for tax resistance. Describes numbers of prosecutions, seizures of goods, imprisonment, and disfranchisement. Concludes…

Reviews the nature of international labor migration today and the economic and political rationale for its occurrence. It is suggested that developed economies will have little need for mass immigration by those with low-level skills, whereas poorer countries will encourage emigration, resulting in more illegal immigration. (SLD)

Compares Tanzania and Cuba to show how, in each case, the state has used education in political and socioeconomic development as a means of achieving socialism. In Cuba, the school system has contributed to creation of the new society, whereas Tanzania continues with piecemeal reconstruction of the educational system. (SLD)

The iconoclastic new governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, is challenging the status quo in higher education. A believer in personal responsibility, he feels students should do more to pay for their education and opposes merit scholarships, but also wants more state money for colleges. Ventura's skepticism about government institutions such as…

Describes a qualitative research project examining homelessness's effects on children's schooling, highlighting a South Carolina intervention program's success. Research disclosed an informal homelessness "caste system," the political unpopularity of providing homeless services, homeless kids' high rates of academic failure and problem…

Summarizes an Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges study concerning state officials' perceptions of citizen governing boards and academic governance in public institutions. Findings and recommendations are outlined in five areas: preparing for the future; serving the public interest; navigating a new political environment;…

Washington State's Initiative 200, on the ballot this November, would bar state and local governments from "discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, and contracting." Observers see the initiative as another attack on affirmative action.…

Examines U.S. public schools' changing demographics and their effects on barriers to equal opportunity for racial and ethnic minorities. Disabilities of poverty, inadequate income, denied access to shared American values, and collective discrimination obstruct these groups' high educational attainment. Equity plans and monitoring must eliminate…

In the U.S. Congress, attention to scientific fraud and misconduct has involved extensive use of oversight authority. Because scientists and universities have failed to respond promptly to calls for self-regulation, Congress has imposed formal regulations and favors increased scrutiny of research and a reassessment of university-government-science…

Significant political and sociological changes have occurred in Spain in the last two decades which have considerably affected higher education. Currently, Spain's higher education has to cope with new challenges in order to place the system at a desired level of quality. The main changes that have occurred and the current challenges in Spain's…

Addresses the political and policy environment that has shaped the educational agenda for rising U.S. state accountability systems, highlighting these policies' effects on the limited-English-proficient learner. The hope for language-minority students lies in pressures on school officials to narrow the white/minority achievement gap. (Contains 64…

In this study, quantitative and qualitative methods were used to identify factors that best explain variations in state appropriations for Carnegie Public Research I Universities during the late 1990s. A combination of cultural, political, and institutional factors emerged as critical elements accounting for differences in support including…

This paper describes two attempts to introduce grammar teaching into New Zealand schools. The first case study describes the work of the 6th and 7th form English Syllabus Committee in the 1980s which proposed the uniquely New Zealand solution of using examples from Maori as well as from English to demonstrate grammatical points. The response to…