Health care is constantly evolving. Health care professionals and the educators responsible for training those professionals need efficient ways to a) assure new information is getting across to the students and/or professionals, b) relay all new and previous information in a timely manner, and c) correctly utilize the information gathered and…

The International Society for Performance Improvement has always been divided by two often-conflicting views of what its purpose or mission really is. Is it primarily technology focused (focusing on the development and promotion of the field) or member focused (focusing on members' interests and their professional development)? This difference in…

In a study of Ontario, Canada's province-wide Primary Class Size Reduction (PCS) Initiative, school districts' ability to direct and support schools was related to their experience with planning and monitoring, interest in innovation, and its human and fiscal resource base. Districts with greater "resource capacity" were able to…

This article reviews the literature base on class size reduction and proposes a new analytic framework that we believe provides practically useful explanations of how primary class size reduction works. It presents descriptions of classroom practice and grounded explanations for how class size reduction affects educational core activities by…

Previous work on policy implementation has often suggested that schools leave their "thumbprints" on policies received from above. During the implementation of Primary Class Size Reduction (PCS) Initiative in Ontario, Canada, however, school principals spoke with remarkable uniformity about the ways PCS affected their work. This article…

Nationally, rural students represent about a quarter of all students attending public school; nearly a third of all schools are located in rural areas. Those rural schools and students have a number of unique characteristics and needs. For example, the smaller size of many rural schools and districts can sometimes lead to per-pupil expenditures…

This article explores the reasons why transformation of the school system is urgently needed. It is suggested that the system will implode as a result of a growing dislocation between what schools need to achieve and the inadequate, if not damaging, practices forcefully promoted by increasing numbers of school leaders and politicians.…

The consequences of neoliberal policies in education are controversial. Based on the micro-political approach, this study had two aims: (1) to examine teachers' attitudes toward the effect of privatization on inequality and educational improvement; and (2) to examine the link between teachers' positions of power in school and their attitudes…

In the author's talks on education across the country, parents and teachers often ask about products and programs that purport to teach young children to read and to do math. In his 40-plus-year academic career in the field of early childhood education, the author has reviewed a large number of published curricular materials and activities for…

This article examines the connections between No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Effective Schools Research Movement. Using historical methodology, the authors argue that although both were premised on building capacity, over time the reform that became NCLB evolved to focus on accountability. This shift disconnected the reform from its research…

The term "twice-exceptional (2E)" is representative of a diverse group of individuals who have a wide range of gifts, talents, and accompanying disabilities. These children have the characteristics of gifted students along with the characteristics of children with disabilities. The gifted characteristics can mask the disability, or the disability…

As the enduring economic recession forces state and local governments to cut education budgets, astute allocation of resources is becoming more important. The author analyses three basic categories of educational resources: money, human capital, and time before moving to a discussion of resources as a component of school reform. The author…

At the conclusion of many courses on race and racism, students, having learned, some for the first time, about the existence, origins, and complex dimensions of racial domination in America, are left pondering their next steps. "What is to be done?" many ask. "And what, exactly, is it that we want?" Important as they are, these…

The present models for the integration of computer technology not only cannot satisfy teachers' actual needs but also are difficult to follow and perform by teachers in their classroom teaching. Consequently, the integration cannot be implemented properly and effectively in the real classroom teaching. Therefore, a practical integration model…

This article explores the usefulness of podcasts as a pedagogic tool.1 It situates the adoption of podcasts for learning and teaching within the context of a brief history of e-Learning itself and briefly reviews the suggestion that e-Learning and social media suit the construction of a new learner--the digital native. While treating much of the…