In the past, school and college administrators relied heavily on advice from colleagues, largely because they had an internal orientation toward their work. As the social, political, and economic influence of external forces became more apparent, they learned to value input from a range of stakeholders. Robert Taft, former governor of Ohio, is a…

The educational approach views the community of practice as a community of teachers and students who share common rules and values, information and experiences through dialogue and collaboration. Three doctoral theses are in progress at the University of Athens which study the possibilities of creating a community of practice in three different…

Here, we argue that action learning (AL) has been evolving into different variations, whose respective advocates appear to concentrate on one of the several components inherent in Revans' formulation of AL as L = P + Q. They do this--sometimes inappropriately--to the virtual or relative exclusion of other aspects, and this has consequences for the…

Involving communities in the process of curriculum development may not be novel, but it seems lacking with regard to controversial issues such as lessons on diverse family structures, homosexuality, and other special situations. Disparity in values and convictions can lead one person to support a decision, while another person might hold an…

In the current period of international migration there is no consensus among analysts regarding the relationship between immigrant transnationalism and civic engagement in the United States. Focusing mainly on the transnational behaviors of Latin American migrants, three views predominate: critics argue that immigrant transnationalism hinders…

Board of education members come and go, but the community remains. Wise candidates for a superintendent position, as well as the dedicated board members involved in fulfilling this important duty, understand this and therefore want the public to be part of the superintendent search process. As a search consultant to school boards for 20 years, the…

In this paper, I report on the work of a practitioner inquiry group that went awry when the sponsor refused to publish and disseminate the participants' final reports, stating that they were of poor quality and did not contribute to the knowledge base. I, the facilitator of the group, disagreed strongly with her. I suggest that the difference…

The emergence of "managerialism" in the governance and direction of UK higher education (HE) institutions has been led by government demands for greater accountability in the quality and cost of universities. There is emerging anecdotal evidence indicating that the estimation performance of HE spreadsheets and regression models are poor.…

The "National Mathematics Curriculum Framing Paper" has been released for consultation until 28 February 2009 (see www.ncb.org.au). Professional associations, teachers, teacher educators and others are taking the opportunity to organise meetings and forums to consider the views presented in the paper and to provide critical feedback and…

Internationally, demands for greater certainty over the quality of higher education are multiplying. This article argues that convention theory offers insights for considering quality in higher education in an increasingly market-based system. Examples from the Australian higher education system are used to show how quality conventions can be…

This document is an extension of "Resource Needs for California's English Learners" and is the result of deliberations from several informal meetings and two formal meetings of major stakeholders in the area of English Learner (EL) education. Its intent is to suggest a series of policy options, based on data examined in the initial…

School leadership has never been easy. However, some experts like Garcia (2005) wrote that current school leaders are facing a variety of difficulties that make sustaining school reform efforts exceedingly difficult. Collectively, these modern day challenges have the capacity to form the perfect storm. School leaders need effective strategies to…

Non-formal education (NFE) is now considered as playing a critical role in the achievement of the objective of Education for All, by reaching the learning needs of youth and adults who do not have access to formal education, increasing their employment opportunities and therefore contributing to poverty alleviation. Yet there is still insufficient…

This article presents an interview with Eric Barela, a K-12 school district internal evaluator who conducted the Title I Best Practices study for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Research and Planning Division (formerly known as the Program Evaluation and Research Branch). In this interview, the author focuses not only on the…

Employing Searle's views, I begin by arguing that students of Mathematics behave similarly to machines that manage symbols using a set of rules. I then consider two types of Mathematics, which I call "Cognitive Mathematics" and "Technical Mathematics" respectively. The former type relates to concepts and meanings, logic and sense, whilst the…