One can't throw a stone without hitting a STEM initiative these days, but most science, technology, engineering, and math initiatives--thus the STEM acronym--overlook a fundamental problem. In general, the workforce pipeline of elementary school teachers fails to ensure that the teachers who inform children's early academic trajectories have the…

This dissertation is a qualitative case study of how three liberal arts colleges rationalized and provided physical education courses despite a trend in higher education to reduce or eliminate physical education from the curriculum. Kalamazoo College, Bennett College for Women, and Barnard College for Women continue to provide physical education…

The most significant objective of pre service teacher education is to educate qualified teachers. How this quality can be attained seems possible by designing teacher education programs which enable students to acquire skills such as reaching knowledge and solving problems. It is thought that student teachers begin to understand the profession…

The University of Chicago met widespread national opposition ten years ago after it instituted a new, less demanding core curriculum to make way for more electives. It was part of a plan to make the curriculum significantly less demanding in order to attract more students and improve the school's bottom line in a time of putative budget deficits.…

The University of Iowa has reversed course on a plan to make some students' theses freely available online, following protests from students in the university's writing programs. The students said the plan could have threatened the potential commercial value of their novels, plays, and other creative works. The controversy began in late winter,…

It is not unusual to find elaborate schemes for compelling and assessing class participation. Although participation can take many forms, in practice it is most synonymous with discussion, which, at its core, is about student engagement. But with what should the students be engaged? When we make class participation a requirement and assess it,…

Administrators at West Virginia University violated procedures and displayed poor judgment in their "seriously flawed" response to an inquiry about a high-profile academic transcript, according to a report issued last week by an independent panel. The harshly worded report found that when the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" raised…

Recently, the long-standing, though relatively low key, debate surrounding certification requirements for career and technical instructors at the postsecondary level has been revived as a critical issue. These discussions have lead to extensive examination of: (1) current credential requirements for instructors; (2) recent changes to state and…

How states authorize postsecondary institutions to operate within their boundaries is one of the least well documented topics in higher education today. No two states do this the same way and jurisdictional boundaries among the state agencies that perform these functions are sometimes uncertain (Goldstein, Lacey, and Janiga 2006). The role of…

In the 2007 edition of the NCPEA Yearbook, Zigler and Allen allude to the principalship and its associated training as being at a "tipping point," a reference to Malcom Gladwell's (2000) book, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Difference" (2007, p. 139). Zigler and Allen contend the current principal paradigm is…

The proliferation of inappropriate master's degrees in educational administration is a tough challenge facing efforts to reform school leadership in the nation. In the state of Illinois alone, there are 26 universities and colleges offering 32 master's degree programs in educational leadership. In all, candidates enroll in 16 different types of…

National Board Certification is administered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, to advance the quality of teaching and learning by developing professional standards for accomplished teaching, creating a voluntary system to certify teachers who meet those standards and integrating certified teachers into educational reform…

Doctoral education in the United States had been scrutinized because of high-attrition rates reported as an average of 50 percent. Emerging from Lovitts (2001), this research examined students' attendance at Mock Orals (MO) and its relationship to their academic and social integration, cognitive maps, goals, rates of attrition, and retention in a…

This article discusses the most relevant findings of a comprehensive study carried out at the University of Helsinki Language Centre that looked into work-related foreign language needs of graduates from the University of Helsinki. The aim of this article is to provoke other language centres or similar institutions in other European universities…

Major changes are coming to U.S. financial accounting and accounting education as U. S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) converge within the next few years. In 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a proposed "road map" for the potential…