Background: The UK, like most countries across Europe and other advanced economies, has experienced an alarming rise in the levels of young people (aged between 16 and 24 years) who are detached from both the labour market and the education and training system. In the UK, there are nearly a million 16-24-year-olds who are recorded as being not in…

The increasingly common practice of engaging consulting firms to assist states with educational policy agendas requires an analysis of the role these consultants play in what is positioned as a democratic decision-making process. In this study, we examine the discourse of a state-level advisory committee formed to develop a new teacher evaluation…

Background: Local control has historically been a prominent principle in education policymaking and governance. Culminating with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), however, the politics of education have been nationalized to an unprecedented degree, and local control has all but disappeared as a principle framing education policymaking.…

The U.S. legal system gives parents the authority and responsibility to make decisions about their children's health care, and favors parental rights over society's collective responsibility to provide for children's welfare. Neither the federal government nor state governments have an affirmative obligation to protect and promote children's…

The teacher empowerment process emphasizes professional development and participation (i.e., increasing professional status, skills, knowledge and providing the opportunity to participate in decision-making); however, whether these efforts eventually lead to the realization of teacher power remains a critical concern, especially considering that…

The concept of "practice" is offering a new approach to questions in public policy, especially those dealing with the process dimension of the political. But what exactly are practices? The first part of this paper focuses on the appropriate size or dimension of a political practice: What kind or range of events should be considered as…

What are the practices of policy making? In this paper, we seek to identify and understand them by attending to one of the principal artefacts--the document--through which they are organised. We review the different ways in which researchers have understood documents and their function in public policy, endorsing a focus on content but noting that…

One of several important pieces of higher education legislation in Parliament in 2011 is the "Higher Education Support Act Amendment ("Demand-Driven System and Other Measures") Bill". As its title makes clear, this Bill is intended to bring into effect the Government's commitment (announced in March 2009) to uncap the supply of…

There is overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder-type diseases, at a nontrivial rate. The bulk of the evidence takes the form of thousands of adverse event reports. There is also a small amount of systematically gathered data. The adverse event reports provide compelling…

The study examined the relation of cognitive and emotional engagement and academic achievement across three generations (immigrant, children of immigrant parent(s), non-immigrant) of 474 Mexican American adolescent students attending a junior high school in Southern California. Regression analysis revealed a generational shift in regards to the…

The paper examines demographic information sources and utilization as determinants of educational policy making in South West Nigeria. Using validated and structured questionnaire, the study population of 398 officers in the ministries of education in the affected states were enumerated. The study establishes population census, vital registration,…

This paper critiques specific forms of classroom teacher effectiveness research. In doing so, the paper suggests that education policy-making deems and employs teacher effectiveness research as a promising and capable contrivance for the identification of ineffective classroom teaching practice. The paper engages with this policy debate by using a…

The offering of flavored milk in schools is a controversial topic. U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations now require that flavored milk in schools is fat-free. The perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes of 21 school nutrition directors (SNDs) about the offering and student acceptance of lower-calorie, flavored milk were explored using a focus…

"Viewpoint" is a series of articles written by leaders in charter school authorizing and the education reform movement. The series is meant to foster thoughtful discussion and idea exchange on current topics and emerging trends in the sector. This paper examines the various policy and implementation levers available to inject affirmative…

The profound influence of globalization seems helping outshine the concept of "education" with the more flexible notion of "learning" in the education policies of major transnational organizations. With considerable differences in concepts, all of them are promoting "learning", more specifically LLL (lifelong…