U.S. Supreme Court justices and other federal judges are, effectively, appointed for life, with no built-in check on their cognitive functioning as they approach old age. There is about a century of research on aging and intelligence that shows the vulnerability of processing speed, fluid reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory to…

Some analysts foresee that the rise of automation--triggered by advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and other novel technologies--will soon unsettle sizable sections of our labour market, prompting the need for mass upskilling and re-skilling. Continuous learning is perceived as the new norm within the future of work. Many believe that…

The 2020 PDK Poll of the Public's Attitude Toward the Public Schools finds that more than half of adults consider public education highly important in their choice for president. And regardless of political party, most Americans agree that the administration in Washington should focus on attracting and retaining good teachers to the profession and…

Since the inception of the Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) Program in 1992, the Canadian federal government, through the ministry responsible for immigration, has diligently sought to bring consistency to the program through a variety of government initiatives. These include operational bulletins, curriculum guidelines,…

For this first "History of Education Quarterly Policy Forum," we invited participants in the special Plenary Session at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the History of Education Society (HES) in St. Louis to publish their remarks on the historical significance of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) at fifty. Organized and…

Dance educators will be pleased to know that there is new legislation at the federal level that supports arts education. Seven years after Congress was due to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known for eight + seven years as No Child Left Behind [NCLB]), the lawmakers, suddenly and surprisingly, came through with a new…

In the face of yet another crisis in teaching, it's time for a bold and comprehensive plan to revitalize and better support the profession. Education expert Linda Darling-Hammond explains how the current shortage of teachers is not entirely new, but the result of decades of cutting programs, lack of respect for the profession and poor working…

The nineteenth-century debate about the role of the US Bureau of Education was marked by negotiations between the civic republican language of antebellum common school advocacy and a social scientific language of educational professionalism. To advance this argument, this essay traces how members of Congress defined, criticized, and delimited the…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, succeeded in weakening the least popular parts of the No Child Left Behind act. But, argues Jack Jennings, it's a purely reactive piece of legislation, offering no positive vision for the federal government's role in addressing K-12 education's most urgent problems. ESSA is still young, he…

Scholars of political economy have raised the question of whether recent populist movements around the world signal the decline of neoliberal hegemony. What would such a decline mean for education policy, an arena that has been dominated by a neoliberal common sense for several decades? This study investigates the policy discourse of former U.S.…

School climate has received considerable attention in the literature and educational policy as a potential target for school improvement and school safety efforts. This paper provides a critical review and synthesis of the literature on school climate, with a particular focus on topics related to measurement, data collection, analysis, as well as…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss an innovative course offered as a partnership between the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) (Canada), the Prince George Chamber of Commerce (Canada) and local businesses: UNBC's third-year undergraduate/graduate course, carbon and energy management. Design/methodology/approach: The…

The Library of Congress offers a wealth of primary source documents that can be integrated into the classroom to enhance critical thinking skills of students as they learn about historical and other related topics. Similarly, these materials can be promoted via individual libraries for their 24/7 access online. Understanding what primary source…

To protect the health and well-being of children and clients, workers in schools, childcare centers, and the healthcare industry need regular, state-of-the-art education on bed bug avoidance and control. For some, webinars provided by the United States Environmental Protection Agency are a convenient, free source of this education. Bed bug…

We explore interpretations of MOOCs around the globe and, in particular, interpretations of MOOCs in Norway. Based on a review of previous studies relevant to these topics, we present two contrasting views on the emergence and development of MOOCs, namely the global interruption view and the national mediation view. We suggest, based on previous…