Explores the role and significance of co-operation, or clustering, between small primary schools in rural areas across England and Wales. Describes small-school cluster groups in detail and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of clustering based on the opinions of sample headteachers. Considers the future of cluster co-operation. (Contains…

Describes Dean Kamen's FIRST foundation (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and its sporting competition that offers high school students hands-on acquaintance with robots of their own creation; its goal is to inspire students to pursue future studies in science and technology by showing them that learning in this area can…

Discusses special aspects of East Asian collections and explores how organizational changes in academic libraries affect them, based on experiences at the University of Arizona. Considers total quality management; continuous quality improvement; teamwork; staffing changes; specialization versus generalization; budgetary restraints and cost…

Kogan, who has headed the Samara (Russia) Education Department since 1992, believes education reforms cannot succeed without overarching objectives and desirable outcomes. Communities are struggling with cooperatively choosing and implementing curricular and other reforms because they have no "civil society" or democratic traditions on which to…

A survey of 794 program directors in 14 specialties assessed actual and projected changes in the selection process for medical residents and determined the relative weights the directors assigned to personal and academic criteria. Results indicate significant changes in the selection process, including a continuing decrease in residency positions…

The emergence of publicly subsidized preschool raises important policy questions about the role of market forces and, in places where competition to provide these services exists, presents a setting in which the effects of competition on educational outcomes can be tested. We test neo-institutional hypotheses concerning the effects of competition…

The high-school problem is nothing new. In one of his early writings, James S. Coleman, the brilliant sociologist who later wrote the famous report on the equality of opportunity for education (the "Coleman Report") and the first study of public and private schools, identified the essential high-school problem: "our adolescents today are cut off,…

New school creation is key to success of choice. For the last two decades, the struggle over school choice has focused on freeing up parents to choose. It continues to this day, with growing success in the forms of public and private voucher programs, charter school laws in 40 states and the District of Columbia, and state and federal laws that…

More than 20 years ago, A Nation At Risk warned that "a rising tide of mediocrity" threatened the U.S. education system and that the United States would be unable to effectively compete with other economies because of a scarcity of graduates in science and technology. In 2001, No Child Left Behind reiterated that message, pushing through…

This study examines teachers' perceptions of classroom motivation and achievement among students displaying culture-based classroom behaviors. Sixty-two elementary school teachers read scenarios of hypothetical students who behaviorally manifested themes purported to be consistent with a European/mainstream cultural ethos (competition,…

An old adage--the truly educated never graduate--has come to exemplify the rationale for the growth and expansion of professional continuing education (PCE) programs in the United States. This monograph is about the trends and best practices in professional continuing education. It explores how this area of higher and adult education, once the…

E-learning is such an attractive opportunity for training providers to reconfigure delivery and support that it presents compelling reasons to engage with the practice. A broad range of provision is therefore available for every type of market segment, including small firms. Sustaining a competitive advantage from a host of offers is a practical…

The focus of this article is on a comparison of the national policies for internationalisation in seven Western European countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom). In this comparison, it will be shown that the trend suggested in previous research of increasing economical rationales for…

This article describes a case competition that reflects the four elements of a grounded learning exercise. These elements include creating a real-world experience, optimizing learning transfer, integrating theory and practice, and shifting learning responsibility to the students. The authors also provide details on implementing this exercise in an…

This article describes how the author creates and implements a "recess" program entitled Physical Activity Time (PAT) to address behavior problems of children at school. The program aims to decrease discipline issues that occurred or began during recess time. The author discusses the strategies in implementing the program which came in two parts:…