The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college's adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics…

School districts across the U.S. are experimenting with various reforms in an attempt to bridge the gap between secondary and postsecondary education and create greater access to postsecondary education for all students. One such reform initiative is the Early College High School (ECHS) model, which allows high school students to earn a diploma…

This dissertation consists of three chapters examining issues relevant to current higher education policy debates. In the first chapter, I use surveys, in-depth interviews, and administrative records from a sample of Wisconsin Pell Grant recipients who chose among Wisconsin public colleges and universities to explore whether students' initial…

Historically teachers have primarily operated within the confines of their classrooms. However, school environments have started to shift leadership opportunities that have traditionally been exclusive to administrative positions, by empowering teachers to lead school initiatives as well as holding them accountable for leadership through annual…

For decades, for-profit educational provision has been tolerated, often grudgingly. In the world of charter schooling, for-profit providers are lambasted and sometimes prohibited. In higher education, for-profit institutions have grown rapidly, enrolling millions of nontraditional students and earning enmity, suspicion, and now investigative and…

The headlines report that college tuition is rising rapidly and students are struggling to pay for college. Financial-aid issues have also been in the news lately, with questions about student debt particularly prominent. Non-tuition revenues are weak because of declining state appropriations, depleted endowments, and anemic annual giving. At the…

Stroke is not only a serious medical problem, but it also poses an enormous economic burden on society. Stroke ranks the third as the leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease and cancer. The survivors of stroke suffer from various degrees of long-term disability which create a severe financial burden on society. University…

In these difficult economic times, everyone is on the lookout for savings. This author, an adult services librarian at New City Library in New York, has spent the last two years implementing small-scale open source and freeware replacements where proprietary or paper solutions once ruled. While none of these projects is individually revolutionary,…

This study examines the comparative effectiveness of using law enforcement agencies for child protective investigation (CPI), in contrast with the traditional approach of CPI conducted by the public child welfare agency. The analysis uses 2006-2007 data from a natural experiment conducted in Florida to show modest differences in performance and…

In this article, the author talks about program evaluation, a strategy commonly used by instructional leaders that can help school business officials improve their budget process. As districts struggle to develop budgets in these challenging economic times, school business officials might consider turning to program evaluation for help. Program…

Beth Kanter is working hard to get the word out about how best to get the word out. Kanter is CEO of Zoetica, which provides word-of-mouth communication services to nonprofits and socially conscious companies; a decade-long blogger on the topic of social media and nonprofits; and a popular conference speaker and trainer. She is also co-author of…

Many schools around the world are struggling in the face of reduced funding and fluctuating enrolments. Often, the solution to this unhappy equation is quite simply to shut down facilities. But when all the costs of closing a school are considered--financial, material and human--implementing this policy calls for caution. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

Objective: To evaluate whether Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is more effective in reducing youth offending and out-of-home placement in a large, ethnically diverse, urban U.K. sample than an equally comprehensive management protocol; and to determine whether MST leads to broader improvements in youth sociality and in mediators believed to be…

The purpose of this literature review is to examine the differences in the use of sabbatical leave among the arenas of general higher education, industry, and professional-technical/community college. The purposes and policies applied to sabbatical leave, along with the cost of using sabbatical leave in these three environments are compared and…

The Predictive Evaluation (PE) model is a training and evaluation approach with the element of prediction. PE allows trainers and business leaders to predict the results, value, intention, adoption, and impact of training, allowing them to make smarter, more strategic training and evaluation investments. PE is invaluable for companies that…