The 2008-09 budget proposed by the Governor reduces funding for higher education by $1.1 billion, from a figure based on planned enrollment growth and other workload and eligibility factors. The California Postsecondary Education Commission is concerned that funding reductions could result in long-term damage to California's postsecondary…

The goal of this paper is to provide specific suggestions for teaching adult business professionals. The suggestions we present are based on our combined experiences as instructors of business professionals who have returned to school for continuing education and as adult learners ourselves. In this article, we discuss the unique characteristics…

Educators and policymakers can address gifted underachievement through changes in classroom and systemwide practices. This Issue Brief summarizes the issues underlying promising practices for supporting the gifted and talented. It also offers a series of questions to ask when planning schoolwide improvement efforts that address the needs of gifted…

In summer and fall of 2007, Public Agenda completed five focus groups with principals in high-needs districts and sixteen one-on-one interviews with superintendents and other high-ranking education officials including a state superintendent of education. Interviews followed a systematic interview guide revolving around two broad questions: (1)…

Although alcohol is the most abused drug on college campuses, Ritalin has also attracted much concern in recent years. This "Infofacts/Resources" describes Ritalin use on college campuses, outlines possible effects of its abuse, and recommends policies for institutions of higher education. (Contains 7 online resources.)

Reporting on a talk the author gave some months ago, the headline in "La Opinion," Los Angeles' premier Spanish language newspaper, declared the city's school system "en crisis permanente." No one wrote in to disagree. Indeed, at the end of "Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education" (Harvard Education Press) the author…

This article explores the impact of the sustainable development (SD) agenda on the occupational and professional needs of those who have undergone educational and training programmes in the environmental field either at the undergraduate or the postgraduate level or through relevant professional institutions' continuing professional development…

Smart change is a simple yet powerful means to help administrators, faculty, staff, and stakeholders better understand the issues surrounding change initiatives at their institutions. A comparison of three approaches to change: routine, strategic, and transformative provides the foundation for improved planning by focusing on the targeted change…

The previous article reviewed the range of educational technology professional development session and program goals. In this article, the second part of four-part series, the author presents and explains educational technology-related professional development (ETPD) models. ETPD models can be classified into five general types of professional…

This paper reports the findings of a study of Multiple Modes of Delivery in Australian universities that was commissioned by Australian Universities Teaching Committee over the period 2001-2004. The project examined and described the various means of educational delivery deployed by Australian universities. It identified the pedagogical,…

As teachers and leaders are well aware, schools and districts across the country have invested enormous amounts of money and energy in creating data management systems so that teachers can access information about their students' performance. With these systems in place, the focus now needs to move to the structures and allocation of time that…

Research has identified many factors that can foster the educational resilience of students who are at risk for academic failure. Educators have organized many of the recommendations that arise from this data into curricula and programs for implementation at the district and school levels. Researchers and educators have given less attention to…

Because living and working are so different now from even a decade or two ago and will continue to change, today's students need new thinking, technical, and communication skills to survive and thrive in the future. Fortunately, the pursuit of knowledge has never been as exciting as it is today. The ability to learn in a mobile, connected…

This paper outlines the efforts of an Educational Psychology Service (EPS) to develop its practice in the area of research. It will argue that the Action Enquiry model of service delivery can empower teaching staff and may allow an effective means of change and improvement to take place in schools. This model steers research towards providing…

This chapter begins with a retrospective look at governance in community colleges based on a working understanding of governance as a correlate of decision making. In its simplest form, governance is "a process for distributing authority, power, and influence in decision making among constituencies" (Alfred and Smydra, 1985, pp. 201-202). What…