The annual city expenditure for public libraries is compared to annual expenditures for selected other services, from 1950 through 1968-69. (Author/MM)

To ascertain their basic knowledge of the world's most visible cities and countries, questionnaires were administered to eighth and ninth grade students. The outcome of the study was disappointing. Places such as Bucharest and Djakarta were practically unknown, even to geography students. (RM)

Describes a teaching activity which encourages junior high and high school students to analyze a city geographically and historically by using materials available from a Chamber of Commerce or Bureau of Tourism. (CK)

Municipal employees (n=269) ranked 15 motivational factors. Supervisors were significantly dissatisfied with about half; nonsupervisory workers were satisfied with only one. The latter expressed less interest in learning new things, benefitting society, and having autonomy and more interest in advancement, security, exercising leadership, and…

Surveyed 59 Wisconsin officials to determine the fiscal crises in U.S. small towns. Results did not reveal a fiscal crisis, but fiscal stress was evident. Wisconsin small governments responded to fiscal stress though increasing local taxes, borrowing money, obtaining increased state aid and shared revenue, reducing expenditures, and promoting…

Sostanj Primary School offers a learning process which can enrich traditional forms of schooling. It demonstrates how a school, including its infrastructure, can influence family life and the environment, creating new social patterns and a local identity. Pupils and teachers are involved in different thematic projects and programmes, together with…

Learning about local government seems boring and irrelevant to most young people, particularly to students from high-poverty backgrounds. The authors explore a promising approach for solving this problem, Storypath, which engages students in authentic learning and active citizenship. The Storypath approach is based on a narrative in which students…

Rules governing practice and procedure before the Office of Cable Television (OCT) within the Department of Public Utilities of the State of New Jersey are set forth. First provided are a set of definitions. Following this, specifications are set forth concerning: 1) fees and charges; 2) appearance and practice before the OCT; 3) classification of…

Pennsylvania's rural areas are often characterized as having lower incomes and lower housing values than urban areas. This characterization is not universally accurate, however, since there are some impressive pockets of wealth within rural Pennsylvania. To highlight the diversity of wealth among Pennsylvania's rural municipalities, the Center for…

Examines the finding of the Southern Regional Education Board study in which state-local tax potential (ability) is estimated and compared with actual collections (effort). Also discusses the current and future adequacy and equity of the state-local tax revenue structure. (Author/IRT)

Describes the Affordable Housing Opportunities Program (AHOP) created by the Eau Claire County Housing Authority in Wisconsin. The AHOP buys, renovates, and sells homes for prices below fair market value. This provides safe, sanitary housing for families who could not otherwise afford it. Describes the purchase, renovation, and sale of four…

This paper explores the connection between grade inflation and school competition by studying graduates from the Swedish upper secondary schools in 1997. The final grades are compared to the SweSAT national test scores. Single school municipalities are compared with multiple school municipalities in order to study if potential intra-municipal…

In the last four years teacher performance evaluation in Chile became a major policy issue involving teachers, politicians, the media, school management, and education authorities. The discussion highlighted the unresolved question of how to insure teaching quality and reduce incompetence in classrooms and schools to the benefit of pupil learning…

In this article, the author discusses how economics of education is closely related to educational policy. He also takes a look at some of the problems faced by the general education system in Russia. There has been a drastic reduction in amounts of funding for education on two occasions, in 1992 and in 1998. The author also takes a look at the…