On November 19, 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would invest $290 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The foundation made six-year grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching (IP) sites…

This paper explores whether phenomenology, in general, and the case of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's phenomenological optics in particular, provides a case and a location for "minimal realism," located between the extreme positions of absolute scientific realists and "radical rhetoricians." The paper begins with a description of…

A model for assessing the needs of the rural elderly based on the goal of empowerment is described and evaluated through a case study in Pennsylvania. Overall, the 63 community workers positively evaluated the needs assessment data derived through the model. Ways to enhance the model are discussed. (SLD)

Financial support to college students and public and private colleges in Pennsylvania is described. The philosophy in Pennsylvania regarding the survival of private institutions is to provide money to the students, the consumers, and let them decide which institutions fit their basic needs and goals. Pennsylvania has established the Pennsylvania…