Present and past efforts to enhance school efficiency have failed. Progressive Era reforms of a half-century ago contributed to the creation of a publicly insensitive, professionally dominated education system. Accountability enthusiasts of the '70s failed to understand the fundamental misalignment between the assumptions underlying private sector…

Micronesia is a multicultural society which must develop an educational system to meet viable cultural options. The society harmoniously blends Spanish, Oriental, German, and American influences in its language, racial structure, religion, and architecture, but not in its educational system. Education has traditionally been tailored to the needs…

A problem-oriented history of education in postcolonial India is presented along with a forecast of India's educational future. The problems of providing quality education in India after 190 years of British rule, which left only l3 percent of the Indian population literate at the time of India's independence in 1947, are discussed. India's…

Portrayal of racial minorities in textbooks is discussed and the practice of textbook publishers in their treatment of the roles of minorities during the 1960s to the present is traced. America transmits the dominant ideals and values of its culture to students through textbooks. Until the 1960s, racial minorities were generally ignored by writers…

Describes the conceptual framework for an urban Montessori high school in Holland in 1945. Includes information on implementing fundamental Montessori principles, scheduling, materials, organization of subject matter, use of group mentors, and democracy in school. Focuses on how the school increases adolescents' moral strength with living and…

This study investigated the perceptions of various stakeholders concerning the current and future roles and functions of the Middle East Technical University (METU), a leading large public university in Turkey. The data used in this paper were derived from a larger research project that was designed to assess the quality of various dimensions of…

The United Kingdom has a history of performance assessment even for accountability purposes, as the public examinations (standardized achievement tests) at age 16 demonstrate. What the country does not have is a strong history in the area of equity. Debate and policy-making, when concerned at all, have been concentrated on equality of opportunity,…

Programs and curricula in vocational education in Taiwan have traditionally been linked to the nation's priority of economic development. The current vocational education system originated in the 1950s. In the 1970s, public free education was extended from 6 years of elementary school education to include an additional 3 years of junior high…

The purpose of this paper, which is drawn from a larger analytic history of the National Teacher Evaluation (NTE) program, is to investigate issues of validity within the context of the program's 50-year history. Three major findings emerge from historical considerations relating to: (1) the continuity of test content and justification over the…

To determine if a relationship can be found between school size and academic achievement, a study examined correlations for 566 New Mexico public schools (grades 5, 8, and 11) from 1978 to 1981. The measure of academic achievement used was the schools' average "total scale score" on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills. The two…

Beginning with a capsule history of United States education reform efforts and an examination of the American "myth" of the apolitical nature of education, this paper explores the political bases of education policy. Reviewing the literature on educational politics with a particular concern for recent curriculum reform efforts at the state level,…

Japanese industrialization started later than in other countries and thus relied at first on foreign-trained persons. Soon, however, Japanese companies began systems of in-house training for their employees. Eventually, some companies paid tuition for their employees to attend night schools at educational institutions and even to study abroad.…

When the nation of Pakistan was first created, school entrance and civil service examinations were administered in a foreign language--English. A major concern is that enrollment in primary education only increased from 17 percent in 1947 to 48 percent in 1983, with stil a very high dropout rate. National and province-wide boards of education were…

Although educators and philosophers such as Johann Amos Comenius, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel stressed the study of nature, outdoor education really began with the first teaching-learning act which occurred outdoors. The human being, physiologically and psychologically adapted for outdoor existence, has only been indoors for…

This paper describes how education as a function of society is controlled mainly by professional education associations and influenced to a small degree by local cultural groups. An alternative for control of Indian education is explored with respect to the potential of school boards for flow of power and relationship to Indian cultures. Community…