As their second decade draws to an end, Canada's community colleges are confronted with budgetary constraints and increasing demands for more accountability. While in many ways their performance has been impressive, these institutions face a number of issues which defy satisfactory solutions. Four of the more demanding issues are: (1) increasingly…

The economic and political forces behind recent calls for excellence in education are pointing to necessarily dramatic changes in the nature of the teaching profession. Members of the business community, state political leaders, and teachers are working together--with substantial private and state monies--to implement a radical reform agenda that…

Information on educational equity in California is presented in this supplementary report. Issues in the state, resources, proposals, and areas for action are addressed. Areas of analysis include: income for men and women by race and years of education; the numbers of Black and Hispanic students that graduate from high school, enroll in college,…

Examination of the scope of management prerogatives in negotiation raises the question of available guidelines for school boards. State legislation indicates that the scope of bargaining ranges from narrow restrictions to broad capabilities. Management prerogatives include the power to oversee budgets and hire and dismiss employees. School…

This document contains summaries of 12 presentations given at a conference held in reponse to the comprehensive Oregon school improvement plan entitled "Oregon Action Plan for Excellence." The plan provides a framework for improving public schools in the areas of graduation requirements, academic expectations and assessment, teacher and…

Ten separate 1890 Land-Grant Universities and Tuskegee Institute cooperatively conducted a 10-state southern regional research project, "The Isolation of Factors Related to Patterns and Levels of Living in the Rural South," which elicited household and demographic data on 2,580 rural families. The 10 contiguous southeastern states which…

This report addresses the issue of whether Ontario's investment in elementary education is adequate. Specific questions are posed, reviews of relevant literature conducted, and an assessment of the soundness and completeness of existing evidence is made. After an introductory overview, chapter 2 presents a series of five tables illustrating…

This study documents the innovative utilization of resources in 16 exemplary schools and provides recommendations for staff deployment and school organization. Two introductory chapters place the report in the context of a wider study of which it is part and describe its conceptual framework. The following two chapters review the debate on case…

Educating black male youth, especially those in the New Orleans (Louisiana) Public Schools, is a moral and civic imperative. Though black males represented 43 percent of the public school population in the 1986-87 academic year, they accounted for 57.5 percent of the non-promotions, 65 percent of the suspensions, 80 percent of the expulsions, and…

This affirmative action and staff diversity plan was developed to specify strategies and assign responsibility for increasing the number of qualified minorities, women, disabled, and members of other underrepresented groups who staff California's community colleges. Introductory comments explain the rationale behind the plan, indicating that…

This publication is a general overview of American school boards that explains how they function and why their continued operation is crucial to sustaining participatory and representative government. It comprises five chapters that cover the following topics: (1) a general summary of the significance of school board service; (2) the roles and…

The circumstances preceding and following the 1984 merger of two small school districts in North Central New York State contained cooperation, controversy, and disharmony. The school districts had enough similarities--in their rural, agricultural base, in the pride and loyalty with which many residents viewed their schools, in the central role…

Outcomes of guidance can be assessed at these three levels: individual, where they are immediate; organizational, where they are intermediate; or societal, where they are ultimate. They may result in learning outcomes, school effectiveness, economic benefits, or social benefits. Various designs of outcome evaluation are described and…

A study was conducted to identify the capacity of existing data collections to provide nationally comparable information on cross-sectoral dimensions of student enrollment in post-compulsory education and training in Australia. Cross-sectoral dimensions are considered to be student movement from schooling to vocational education and training…

The purpose of this policy report is to bring coherence to discussions about school reform and to encourage policymakers to use a consistent metric when judging whether reform proposals are serving the needs of children and the nation. The current confusion and policy debates over what is a public school--brought about by recent educational…