Given diminished governmental support, competition from private counterparts, and public demands for access to services, public universities need to respond in an effective manner to take advantage of opportunities and meet the challenges of today's highly competitive environment. A critical factor in meeting these challenges is the manner in…

Policymakers are moving to outcomes-based funding in an effort to inspire public higher education institutions to drive the transformative change required to expand access, increase graduation rates and contain costs. For outcomes-based funding to have a significant effect on student outcomes, system and institutional leaders must successfully…

The research reported in this article contributes new understanding of leadership in the context of change, by investigating how the views, values and professional practices of those in leadership roles were revealed, interplayed and changed during a period of turbulence in a school in England. The governors of the school proposed changing the…

Higher education policy is the key to lifelong learning and this is particularly important as the ageing population is increasing in many countries. It is a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy and it also brings social cohesion and well-being. Countries are increasingly aware that higher…

This paper draws on a project examining the binary policy of higher education formulated in Australia in the mid-1960s. Its purpose is to discuss history as a policy tool and research impact. The historical analysis identified several enduring problems--beyond the central matter of funding--in tertiary education: insufficient diversity; obstacles…

In order to explain the rising cost of higher education, economist Howard Bowen in 1980 proposed his "famous law" of institutional finance. Bowen based his "revenue theory of cost" on a study of aggregate quantitative data extending from 1929 to 1979. Neither he nor subsequent economists asked whether or how that…

The declining economy of the Dutch Republic obliged city governments in the eighteenth century to take measures to undo the effects of the social deterioration. They therefore founded schools for the poor and sometimes gave full financial support. After 1795, the Batavian Revolution proclaimed that primary education was a state affair, but after a…

This article aims to explain the ultimate organisation of the Argentinian educational system during the 1870s as a result of the 1873 world economic crisis, which led, among other measures, to budget cuts. These had serious consequences in both curriculum design and the general structure of the different educational levels. Such a system fostered…

Vietnam's higher education sector, which has expanded dramatically over the past 20 years, has now reached a point where it is ready to become more research-oriented and better networked internationally. There are, however, aspects of the sector that remain desperately in need of further reform. This paper provides a contemporary review of the…

In 2013, the California legislature passed AB 97, or the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), a sweeping bill designed to reform its school funding system. This study's purpose is to determine the early impact of the LCFF on African American high school students and their families. Student data was collected via surveys and focus groups using…

The political and social rationale for the establishment of a national system of education in nineteenth-century Ireland has been the focus of considerable attention by scholars. Less attention has, however, been paid to teacher quality and school effectiveness within that system. Various efforts were made over the course of the century to address…

This paper traces the origins and development of coal mining education and training in Britain from 1900 to the 1970s, by which time the coal industry had substantially declined. It looks at the progress from working-class self-help to national policy in support of education and training. The research makes use of college prospectuses and…

President Barack Obama recently announced a proposal to eliminate tuition charges at community colleges so that everyone can easily complete the first two years of a university education. At the same time, the administration is creating new regulations to curb the worst abuses of for-profit universities. This suggests that the country has reached…

"Charter Schools at the Crossroads" offers a frank and nuanced analysis of the successes and shortcomings of the charter movement, and outlines possible directions for the future. Few observers present at the creation of the first charter schools a quarter-century ago could have predicted how rapidly this movement would spread or how…

State takeovers were an infrequently applied strategy to address the problems of financially and academically troubled schools for many decades. Although 23 states had the right to take over individual schools and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) required states to address persistently low-achieving schools, only five states had exercised their power…