The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD) is a national committee representing 11 organizations concerned about individuals with learning disabilities. Approximately 350,000 individuals constitute the membership of the organizations represented by NJCLD. The NJCLD considers and discusses contemporary issues in learning…

By 1974 all but three states in the U.S. had established a coordinating agency for developing and financing higher education. The author analyzes the purposes, four types of coordinating agencies and their powers and membership, and discusses issues of accountability vs. autonomy, intermediary vs. planning functions, and diversity vs.…

U.S. and British school leaders are preoccupied with many of the same issues, including the curriculum and its assessment, the reporting of pupil achievement and use of raw scores, site-based management, parental choice as a quality lever, small schools, the school board's role, and different approaches to quality improvement. Overemphasis of…

Chief state school officers in all 50 states were surveyed to gather information regarding the various states' funding arrangements for small and/or isolated rural schools and to develop a financial planning tool for use by state legislators and boards of education. Data were gathered from every state except Hawaii. Twenty-eight states had some…

The frequent turnover of school board members in the US represents a concern for many educational practitioners who worry about the discontinuity of leadership, leading to negative impacts on students and staff. School board member turnover is also a key variable in studies of democratic theories of public school governance. Using descriptive and…

How does one become an effective superintendent of schools? There is no simple formula as the turnover rate reflects difficulty of the position. Some maintain that the job cannot be done well due to politics, financial constraints, and time demands. As a former superintendent, the author rejects this negative view. In this highly readable,…

This document is composed of two studies. The first examines the education of teachers in Germany, Sweden, England and Wales, and Denmark. It looks at the history of teacher education in those countries, focusing on (1) the fact that primary school teachers have tended to be women trained in inferior normal or teacher training schools, and (b)…

Japanese school management should consider more broad-based, active participation in school board policymaking and should democratize school board-school relationships by adopting the lay-control principle. Both U.S. and Japanese schools should improve the exercise of appropriate administrator leadership. Japanese schools are evaluated on a…

Two years after the United States began its military operations in Iraq, U.S. elementary and secondary schools are among the organizations that still must cope with the loss of employees to military service. This article reports on a number of concerns among districts and schools as the U.S. military operations continue for the foreseeable future.…

In the fall of 1953, the Supreme Court of the United States received the case of "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" (347 U.S. 483, 1954) that raised essential questions, including whether separate but "equal" facilities in education can be provided for black students in the United States or whether the consideration of…

The primary role of the states in jurisdiction over postsecondary education is reviewed, along with the evolution of state higher education systems, the state planning function concerning institutional role and mission assignments, and state board practices in planning for diversity. (MSE)

Applies some federal legislation and court opinions relative to citizenship and constitutional rights to Native American education policies and practices, particularly those affecting the Navajo. Contends that the Bureau of Indian Affairs policy of allowing school board members to serve only as advisors abridges the constitutional rights of Native…

A discussion of the changing relationship between the state and higher education in nine industrialized countries looks at conflicting requirements for institutional accountability, different models for the relationship; politics and governance; the developing role of central intermediary agencies; changing perspectives of student protest; and the…

This document examines how Ministries/Departments of Education in Canada and the United States build community-ownership of schools. Common and novel strategies for building educational communities are also discussed using Eisler's "gylanic" society paradigm. Individuals within governmental agencies that work at developing collaborative…

Almost seventy years passed before vocational education was recognized in 1977 as a state function in North Carolina's public secondary schools, community colleges/technical institutes, and teacher education programs. Although the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act initiated vocational education, North Carolina education was primarily a local matter until the…