Suggests four criteria (efficiency, return on investment, incentives, and equity) for evaluating and comparing public programs for poor children, and provides an overview of information available on eight large federal programs using these criteria. Positive effects of some programs are noted, and policy recommendations the evidence supports are…

This case study of a community's corporal punishment task force illustrates impediments to applying educational research in local policy making. Because the nature of empirical research is not well understood, scientific knowledge can be distorted or ignored. For scholarship to serve society, scholars must confront impediments to accurate…

The report of the American Association of University Professors' ad hoc Commission on Governance and Affirmative Action concerning the University of California's decision to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring, and awarding of contracts is presented. It outlines the events leading to the policy action, considers the educational impacts,…

Describes how decision makers utilize information, and synthesizes models of organizational information and communication between science and government. Usage is affected by interrelationships of several variables: decision makers' environments; organizational and individual characteristics; and character of the information. Variations in usage…

A survey of approximately 300 U.S. rural development officials indicates that rural-based officials often had a greater appreciation of rural environmental quality of life features than did their urban-based counterparts. Suggests decentralizing rural development policy formation to the communities affected. (SV)

Focuses on three themes in language education policy: (1) the historical and legal foundations of second language education policies in British Columbia and international settings; (2) implications of language education policy development for teacher education; and (3) the knowledge bases and resources needed for coherent policy development and…

Reports on a task force convention in the U.S. that discussed updating the legislation known as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA '97). Analyzes the implications that its deliberations will have for English-language international schools throughout the world. (Contains 14 references.) (NB)

Studied Sweden as an advanced welfare state with a centralized education system through interviews with 12 administrator and policy makers and 42 teachers and headteachers as well as surveys completed by 413 ninth graders. Findings show large differences in the context of schools in terms of social and cultural backgrounds of students and…

Argues that policy-oriented educational research produced a new kind of knowledge: third order knowledge. Defines third-order knowledge as knowledge of and for experts whose purpose is the legislation and regulation of everyday lives. Proposes that expert knowledge motivates a critical analysis contextualized in a historical study of…

Threatened with closure or reduction to community college status due to severe retrenchment, the University of the District of Columbia is working hard to repair morale, raise funds, and regroup to open with more strength in the fall. The university's interim president feels the institution would have had a better chance if its administration had…

Argues that any college or university policy change that enlarges rather than restricts faculty roles must address five aspects of scholarship that interact with each other: scholarly activities; expressions of scholarship; motivations for scholarship; and quality and significance of scholarship. Offers a comprehensive model of scholarship and…

Explores U.S. Supreme Court rationale in judging the constitutionality of affirmative action cases and why the theory used in its decisions is at odds with the formal theory and research on social psychology of affirmative action procedures. The scientific work indicates procedural conditions that the Court would find social psychologically…

Analyzes the main events that characterize the development of environmental education in Malta. Focuses on three major evolutionary stages of that development: (1) the awareness stage; (2) the fragmentary stage; and (3) the coordinated stage. Contains 42 references. (DDR)

Identifies the major legacies inherited by the post-colonial government in Hong Kong (China). Focuses on the educational policy making process and the concept of citizenship promoted through the school curriculum. Analyzes these two aspects of education using the state promoted concepts of civic participation and identity. Includes references.…

Delineates the mechanisms by which an international learning environment can be created. Details the support that such an environment would require. Support includes cooperation between institutions, use of work-based learning, and use of technology and open learning material. (DDR)