Amargosa Valley School in Nevada could be considered representative of almost any preK-8 school that serves a large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged students and is focused on turning around persistently low achievement. Like other schools supported by federal School Improvement Grants, Amargosa is beginning to implement a reform plan…

Inverness Research has served as the external evaluation group for the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) since its inception in 2003. As evaluators, Inverness conceptualizes projects as investments in improvement, and it examines the returns on those investments. The direct services of projects and their immediate outcomes…

If productivity and earnings are not found to result from education, then an alternative theory could be that employers use education as a screening device to select employees. Employing the decomposition technique to compare income for self-employed and private sector employees, evidence is presented that rejects the screenist theory. (Author/MD)

Although rising costs of higher education have made most college and university leaders defensive, educators should gather more facts to inform policymakers and the public of the advantages offered by the U.S. higher education system. Highly productive in economic and social terms, it has breadth and depth, and its contribution to economic growth…

Examines the growing demand for multicultural competence in college graduates, describes the course content and academic-advising activities recommended to develop it, and comments on the limits and inherent dangers of providing multicultural exposure universally. Academic advisors are urged to help students maximize their human capital by adding…

Responses from 800 students in primary education and 660 students in secondary education in Cameroon are used to estimate earnings differentiated by educational level and costs by the amount of resources used. (MLF)

The cost of education to a country consists of total public education expenditures, total direct private cost, and total indirect private cost measured in terms of foregone earnings; improperly estimated educational costs focus only on government education expenditures. Considerable progress has been made in conceptual understanding of educational…

Suggests that the most acute problem in educational planning is the confusion about the nature, purpose, and relevance of education. Argues that education should be viewed as a field of hypothesis about the future. Includes the importance of knowledge and know-how, education versus educational systems, and social versus educational planning. (DK)

A survey of recent studies on trends and allocations of resources in the American family structure, supplemented by empirical data on family dynamics, may be a step toward clarifying the issue of which processes of family life consistently contribute to children's performances in school. Whether family characteristics or family use of time and…

This report covers the University of Akron's impact on the income, employment, credit availability, governments, and individuals within the community in which the school is located--Summit County, Ohio. Presented is evidence of the impact, as measured by the American Council on Education economic impact model, of the university on its service…

Discusses the state of education in Africa. Argues that programs must be modified according to the political, social, and economic conditions of each country. States that school enrollments have stagnated, and quality of education has declined, resulting in increased school failure and a low level of cognitive achievement. Discusses collaborative…

To help administrators understand the organizational, social, and ideological forces impeding their efforts to empower teachers, this paper provides three critiques of teacher empowerment proposals from functionalist, structural Marxist, and poststructural perspectives. Although the 1980s reform reports promote a type of empowerment that accords…

The mission of the university is to increase human capital in all its dimensions, or value added to human capital through production of valid knowledge. Education and research are by-products, representing learning and discovery. Teaching is a distribution process within education. Distribution of research occurs through products such as public…

Educational reform depends more on clearly defined missions and operational efficiency than on improved teacher quality. This article defines adequacy, equality, equity, and efficiency; examines numerous production function studies of teacher characteristics and policy and administrative structures; and summarizes seven policy implications.…

Since the 1960s there has been a major expansion in the number of people in Australia holding post school educational credentials and the proportion of the full time work force with those credentials. The penalties of not holding credentials, in terms of the incidence and duration of unemployment, are increasingly severe. At the same time, there…