Special education teachers and individualized education program (IEP) team members throughout the country are struggling to make appropriate decisions regarding assistive technology (AT) for students with high incidence disabilities. Although numerous authors and organizations have developed tools to assist IEP teams when considering AT, the task…

Student evaluations of college instruction provide one critical source of information for the improvement of courses, curriculum, and practitioners' pedagogic efforts. Increasingly, online-delivered course evaluations are being put to use for eliciting student feedback in Web-based as well as face-to-face courses. Two studies were conducted in…

In Fall 1996, Alabama Southern Community College formally created its Teaching/Learning Initiative. This was done by implementing bold new efforts that would lead ultimately to its focus to "customize learning" for every student based upon learning styles and preferences. The 1996 efforts included the following commitments: (1) To assess…

This article describes a systematic overhaul of a teacher preparation program and presents outcomes based on studies of the program's effectiveness in improving the knowledge and skills of teacher educators--university and PK-12 based--related to technology, diversity, and democratic education. The renewal program was peer designed and implemented…

The current status of the Lebanese vocational and technical education (VTE) system is assessed and the strategic issues and challenges facing it are identified. In addition to the economic and social challenges that are common to many developing countries, the Lebanese system suffers from idiosyncratic problems, which may require innovative and…

Copyright law, together with the market logic it carries, penetrates deeply into our daily life. The copyright regime is so restrictive that it turns a normal learning process into a series of potential copyright violations. The Free Software Movement (FSM) represents a substantial community effort to counter this trend. It seeks to supersede the…

The "Brown v. Board of Education" decision defined public education for African Americans in the United States. In this article I discuss the tradition of African American parental involvement in the pre-"Brown" era, challenges to parental involvement in a post-"Brown" era, and a parental involvement initiative in an…

A troubling aspect of international schools is their dearth of academic discourse. Mark Bray has observed that two characteristics of international schools contribute to such a lack of research: first, the smallness of the sector; and second, and more important, the fact that such schools lie outside the mainstream local education system, serving…

Leadership style has always been a controversial topic in educational administration and management. Following the recommendation of the Education Commission to introduce school-based management (SBM) into Hong Kong schools in the early 1990s, discussions about the kind of leadership style that is appropriate for SBM schools have never ceased. The…

Following the economic reforms in the early 90's, most of the south-eastern European countries (SEE) made efforts to establish agricultural extension services. However, a number of factors including tight governmental budgets, lack of experience, and the existence of vested interests have constrained the development of extension services. This…

The establishment of Maui Arts & Cultural Center (MACC), a community arts facility that prioritizes education at the top of its mission, has been a significant factor in the growth of arts education in Hawai'i. This article describes the role such a facility can play in the kind of educational reform that people envision, and the author's…

The systemic approach to reform recognizes that schools are part of a complex system of expectations and that reform plans must recognize the diverse interests at play in any reform. While systemic approaches understand that the interaction among factors influencing change are complex and that piece-meal change is problematic, there is a danger…

This section describes the systemic change experiences in Norfolk Public Schools, Chugach School District, Indianapolis Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township, Ditmas Educational Complex, Georgia Systemic Teacher Education Program, Sun Microsystems, and Azerbaijan. It provides a description of the change process and discusses the…

In higher education, a university is typically loosely coupled with its suprasystems, but its various schools or colleges tend to be tightly coupled with the university, as are departments with their respective schools or colleges. Similarly, in the corporate sector, a training department is typically tightly coupled with the company management…

Helping schools create environments where all students can learn is a worthwhile mission for schools big and small. Both multi and single site districts agree that providing equitable and meaningful learning opportunities for every student is essential, but find this challenging and difficult. What are the systemic factors that limit educators in…