President Bush wants to fashion several new education programs, including pricey items central to his oft-touted high school agenda. But he also is proposing for the first time since he entered the White House to cut the overall budget of the U.S. Department of Education. And he's asking Congress to give up a lot--48 line items, to be exact. The…

Education policy documents recently have placed great emphasis on teacher quality in the belief that "education of the highest quality requires teachers of the highest quality" (Department of Employment Education Training and Youth Affairs 2000). This paper traces the discourses on teachers constructed in policy documents in order to…

How is the new industrial model of privatization, commercialization, and corporatization altering higher education's traditional mission? To provide policymakers with understanding about the traditional charter between higher education and society, this article defines the concepts of the public good underlying the charter, analyzes the new…

End-of-life circumstances have changed dramatically in recent years. In the past century life expectancy has increased by 62 percent and people are living longer with chronic illness. This article discusses evolving health practices and policies in end-of-life decisions. Treatments to prolong life and provide comfort, and interventions that hasten…

The February 7, 2005 report by the Honorable Bob Rae--"Ontario: A Leader in Learning"--focused national attention, at least fleetingly, on a matter of prime importance to Canada's future: vulnerable state of higher education in this country, a subject that has, unfortunately, largely escaped serious public discussion. Although Mr. Rae, a…

There are several areas of intersection between tertiary education and basic education. This article examines four such areas--teacher education, academic research, policy analysis and research, and university outreach--and explores possible policy alternatives by which collaboration in these can be strengthened and optimized. The author submits…

In this article, the author presents Howard L. Fuller, a former Milwaukee superintendent who is now a leading national advocate of school choice. His 2002 study found that compared with students in the city's public schools a slightly lower percentage of youngsters in voucher schools in 2001-02 were in "racially isolated" settings. In general, the…

Can money buy high-quality education? Studies find only a weak relationship between public school funding and educational outcomes. In "The Money Myth", W. Norton Grubb proposes a powerful paradigm shift in the way we think about why some schools thrive and others fail. The greatest inequalities in America's schools lie in factors other…

The Arizona Minority Education Policy Analysis Center (AMEPAC) is a policy center of the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education. AMEPAC's mission is to stimulate, through studies, statewide discussion, and debate, constructive improvement of Arizona minority students' early awareness, access, and achievement throughout the educational…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) stands at the forefront of contemporary efforts to create access to education curricula for all students, including those with disabilities. This policy reader comprises a notably wide range of articles that address the challenges and opportunities facing policy makers as they consider UDL's implications for…

The purpose of this study is to expand the definition of adequacy by adding soft skills as a measure of school productivity. The singular focus on academic standards inherent in education policy has prevented scholars from seeing the concept of adequacy through myriad perspectives and has contributed to a resegregation of schools. Education policy…

A variety of studies provide evidence that the stock of college-educated labor has fundamental effects on state and local economies through its association with wages, economic growth, personal incomes, and tax revenues. As a result, policymakers in many states try to increase the percentage of the state's population (or workforce) that has a…

One important aim of social science research is to provide unbiased information that can help guide public policies. However, social science is often construed as politics by other means. Nowhere is the polarized nature of social science research more visible than in the heated debate over charter schools. In "Spin Cycle", noted political…

In "Holding Accountability to Account: How Scholarship and Experience in Other Fields Inform Exploration of Performance Incentives in Education"--a paper presented at the National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference in February--Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, argues educational…

The year 2007 marks the 140th year of continuous efforts by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) to improve Southern education quality and opportunity for all of the region's people, especially those whose life chances are hobbled by poverty. SEF has played a critical role in the South's long circuitous march toward realizing the American Dream…