For the past decade and a half, the fight to improve America's schools has been fought largely on two fronts: academic standards as one battleground, and accountability the other, with the issue of mandatory testing adding heat to a very public--and increasingly politicized--debate. The questions for policymakers and educators are as direct as…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

The new federalism is explained, and reaction to block grants in California is described. Some alternatives to current proposals and programs, effects on research in the social sciences and human services, and conclusions about the prospects for the new federalism proposals are discussed. (MSE)

The report on developing community services identifies effective alternative administrative structures and funding patterns which have enabled or could enable Title I efforts in the State of California to be expanded, continued, or adopted when Title I funding to institutions is diminished or terminated. The first of the report's six chapters is…

Is the United States getting it wrong when it comes to educating tomorrow's innovators in critical fields? It has been known for years that the only way to compete globally in information technology, engineering, nanotechnology, robotics and other fields is to give students the best educational opportunities possible. But do individuals have a…

The purpose of this thesis is to assess the potential for the educational use of cable television, note representative experiments with the medium, and project future trends. A single cable television system in Marin County, California was chosen as a focus for these observations. Literature review and personal interview are the primary techniques…

Part of an international study of the nature and extent of childhood mortality in geographically, socioeconomically and culturally disparate populations, this report focuses on (1) an investigation into all deaths of children under 5 years of age, and (2) a probability sample of live children within the same northern California area during an…

This monograph is based on a conference on bilingual education held by the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) in September, 1995 in Washington, D.C. CEO made repeated attempts to secure speakers representing the pro-bilingual education viewpoint; the paper by Portes and Schauffler represents this view. Papers presented include: "Introduction:…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…