A recent Arkansas Department of Education analysis found highly rated early childhood programs serve many of the state's children. Yet 81,000 eligible children still lack access to publicly funded early learning experiences, particularly in rural areas, and enter kindergarten "not ready to learn." The LEARNS Act focuses on five key areas…

This comment is in response to Andrew D. Colgan's article in a previous issue of the journal. While the author finds Colgan's institutional analysis compelling and agrees his proposed "deinstitutionalizing solutions" of reviving teacher culture and return teacher education preparation to teachers' colleges. He proposes a third remedy,…

This paper describes a Networked Improvement Community comprised of a network of 13 states focused on improving coherence and equity in state systems of science education. Grounded in principles of improvement science adapted from healthcare, we are developing and testing resources for formative assessment in science, with the aim of developing…

"Better Evidence, Better Choices, Better Schools," a recent report from the Center for American Progress and the Knowledge Alliance, focuses on the evidence-based research provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA provisions ask districts and schools to consider various sources of evidence, make judgments about the…

The purpose of this essay is to offer a survey of religious studies capstones from twenty-nine U.S. colleges and universities, to identify the most common frustrations about the capstone, and to observe how departments resolve such frustrations. I conclude that the most successful capstones--in terms of students' performance and faculty…

There is a pervasive and ongoing perception that leadership preparation is a problem. Important questions remain about the intentions, capacity, and impact of state departments of education engaged in leadership preparation program redesign. In this essay, I take up several issues concerning this state policy work, including whether a one size…

In this article Sutherland surveys over the period of the last 40 years (the length of an average full academic career) the changes which have occurred to the departmental structures and procedures in the teaching of and research into English Literature in British universities. He perceives a marginalization of the English department in the…

Changing a curriculum is already stressful enough without finding new ways to create anxiety, discontent, and rancor. To provide a truly integrated liberal education, the author contends that educators must not only change their curricula--the courses they offer--but they must change what they do in the classroom, the kinds of papers and…

Sociology exists in a dynamic academic environment that influences how students view and evaluate the discipline. This essay explores the changing academic context of sociology through the author's experience as a professor and department chair over a span of four decades. Increased co-curricular programming, changing student goals, and more…

Over the last two decades in many countries, culturally responsive, multicultural and bilingual approaches to teaching have largely been replaced by standardised curricula and pedagogy, rooted in a political shift toward neoliberalism that has pushed business models of school reform. I argue that neoliberal reforms, by negating the central…

As part of the development of a Department of Writing Studies in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, the 99-year-old Department of Rhetoric in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences was dismantled. The bulk of Rhetoric faculty have been shifted to this new department of Writing Studies. The…

Last spring, the author distributed a survey to majors and minors in Hispanic studies at Connecticut College and at other schools to informally gather student attitudes toward the nature of Hispanic-studies courses as it pertained to their interests and goals. Although results were somewhat predictable, an unexpected finding was that of 148…

This paper explicates the elements of several policy instruments used in Connecticut, the political conditions under which they were chosen, and their intended targets and expected effects on teacher quality and student learning. The purpose of the paper is to explain how the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) and the Connecticut State Department…

Argues that faculty vitality is an essential element in all English departments, and asserts that basic changes in the English field over the last two decades can help create that vitality. (MM)

Changes in the status of the British "chair" or professorship in the twentieth century are examined, with focus on the types of changes, the reasons for them, and the administrative, educational, and intellectual results. (MSE)