The United Kingdom's educational reforms promote parental choice and school competition. This paper examines social-class differences among parents and their relationship to choice, using PASCI (Parental and School Choice Interaction) study data. Schools are concentrating on middle-class, academically oriented parents. However, market forces…

Presents the findings of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Working Group on Preserving Medical Schools' Academic Mission in a Competitive Marketplace. Concludes that medical schools will take a variety of approaches to define and preserve their missions and that the importance of the core mission of education and research is likely to…

Considers ways to enhance individual creativity and how an individual can help develop a workplace that utilizes creative approaches to instruction and instructional products. Highlights include individual traits and characteristics; abilities and skills; evaluation and reward; competition; and developing individual creativity as an instructional…

Describes Wall Street's growing interest in private education companies. Discusses the parallels between the emerging education industry of today and the fledgling health care industry of the 1970s. The acronym EMO (education management organization) is used to categorize companies that manage entire schools. Describes the niches created by the…

Presents the perspective of students who have competed in the Case Competition of the Canadian Evaluation Society in which teams of three to five students analyze an evaluation case and present findings to a panel of judges. Students describe participation as a unique and invaluable learning experience. (SLD)

Illustrates the contribution that the Student Case Competition of the Canadian Evaluation Society can make to agencies with evaluation needs by describing the experience of an addiction and family services program whose gambling addiction treatment program used as the case in the qualifying round of the 1998 competition. (SLD)

Discusses challenges facing the legal profession: the increasing importance of a law school's identity as national, regional, or local to graduates' career trajectories; disjunction between the legal academy and the profession; the threat to local and regional law schools' economic viability from online education; and emergence of new types of…

Colorado charter schools are public schools operated by a group of parents, teachers, and/or community members as a semiautonomous school of choice within a district. They have increased competition and spurred districts to develop more attractive alternatives. Colorado's Standards Based Education Act requires charter and other schools to adopt…

Followed 8-year olds' friendship dyads through school year to determine if they remained friends, and compared their interaction in structured potential conflict with nonfriend dyads. Found that friends made more proposals than nonfriends to negotiate object sharing, spent more time negotiating, compromised more, and showed more competitive…

A student survey at a relatively inclusive Rhode Island elementary school revealed some environmental deficits. Many students saw the atmosphere as unsafe, uncomfortable, divisive, and unwelcoming. To facilitate community, staff began questioning before advising, and devised structures that allow students to welcome new students and to succeed on…

Argues that the American educational system fails to accomplish its long-standing goal of instilling a sense of personal freedom and independence in its citizens. Argues that in previous years the educational system fostered a spirit of free enterprise, initiative, and the spirit of individual success that led to prosperity. (DDR)

Discusses the need for libraries to market the value of their services. Highlights include customer satisfaction surveys; competition with other information providers; borrowing ideas from the private sector; focusing on marketing electronic resources; targeting younger users; the importance of personal service; and having a budget for…

Two studies examined whether females exhibited greater discomfort than males when competing directly with same-sex peers. In the first study, 40 same-sex groups of 4 children from kindergarten or grade 4 were asked to choose a group leader. The second study involved competitive games in pairs separated by a barrier. Both studies found greater…

Explains the University of Minnesota Learning Software Design Competition, focusing on its goals and emphasis on innovation. Describes the review process to evaluate and judge the software, lists the winners, identifies a new class of educational software, and outlines plans for future competitions. (Author/LRW)

Asserts that market strategies and competition as pathways to higher urban student achievement threaten the moral purposes of education, and if policymakers continue this emphasis, schooling as fundamental to the common good and democracy may suffer. The paper discusses teaching as a moral imperative and a professional activity; public policy…