How long does it take to become an effective board chair at an independent school? One year is certainly not enough. A typical two- or three-year term provides enough time in office to learn the role and start making progress in some critical area, but not enough time to develop any semblance of mastery. Then the chair's term is over and the board…

An Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization has crafted a sweeping plan for reworking the 33,000-student Indianapolis school system that would place the district under the control of the city's mayor, pare down the money spent in central administration, and give principals broad authority to hire and fire teachers. The reform plan created by the…

In autumn, most colleges' football fields are covered with a thick carpet of grass or artificial turf and are adorned with yard lines. But the football field at Paul Quinn College was carved up by plowing and planting. This past fall, portions of the college's gridiron were covered with sweet potatoes, watermelons, peppers, rosemary, and sugar…

As the number of two- and four-year college options available to community members grows, so too does the competition among institutions of higher education to land new students. Expectations are high. Today's students want more than a quality education. They also want a college with a service culture--one that works with them to create an…

The authors describe a conceptual and measurement framework that provides a template for guiding policy development and systems change. The framework is built on the concepts of vertical and horizontal alignment, system-level processes, and organization-level practices. Application of the framework can structure the thinking and analytic…

This paper presents results from fiscal impact simulations of three national-level policies designed to prevent unintended pregnancy: A media campaign encouraging condom use, a pregnancy prevention program for at-risk youth, and an expansion in Medicaid family planning services. These simulations were performed using FamilyScape, a recently…

The August 16, 2011, "Chronicle of Higher Education" article "Want Data? Ask Students. Again and Again" by Sara Lipka posits that in higher education there is a culture of oversurveying students and too often relying on surveys as the main, or only, way of assessing the impact of programs and services on student satisfaction and learning. Because…

Regardless of the grade they teach, teachers are professional decision-makers committed to supporting children's learning. Making decisions about what to teach and how to teach it best is simply a nonnegotiable feature of their job: only teachers have the specialized knowledge and professional training required to design meaningful learning…

Notwithstanding an ongoing concern about the low representation of certain groups in higher education, there is reluctance on the part of politicians and policy makers to adopt positive discrimination as an appropriate means of widening participation. This article offers an account of the different objections to positive discrimination and,…

Rugby, football, and lacrosse; concerts by the bands of their university years; reunions with classmates and teammates. These attractions may draw undergraduate alumni back to campus, but graduate alumni are birds of a different feather. They, too, may be engaged by their alma mater, but their attachments often run contrary to the traditional…

As the number of charter schools has grown nationally, there is increasing discussion of the consolidation of such schools into charter districts in which all schools would be charter schools from which parents would have the freedom to choose the school that they wished their student to attend. A major question is how such a charter school…

When educators think about what makes learning relevant to students, often they narrow their thinking to electives or career technical education. While these provide powerful opportunities for students to make relevant connections to their learning, they can also create authentic experiences in the core curriculum. In the San Juan Unified School…

To propose recommendations to implement outcomes-based assessment program review in a California Community College District, a grounded theory analysis was performed within the district. The findings generated were cross-referenced with findings from a multi-institutional case study analysis. A key finding from the cross-reference was the need for…

Traditional student feedback mechanisms have been criticised for being teacher-centred in design and, in particular, for their absence of transparent follow-up actions. In contrast, this study describes the process and the evaluation of a participatory research and action (PRA) approach used in an undergraduate physiotherapy degree. This approach…

Faced with the challenges of the changes in: higher education, educational developers' roles and the use of innovation to stimulate change, this study aimed to synthesise literature dealing with the diffusion of innovative learning and teaching practices in higher education to determine what lessons could be learnt. The findings suggest that the…