Adult education may keep older workers productive if they voluntarily engage in learning. Examining a generous partial retirement reform in Germany that encouraged early retirement among male workers, we estimate voluntary adult education activities for early retirees. Using county-level administrative data on all public adult education centers…

Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She served as president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2005-2006. Dr. Ladson-Billings has contributed widely to the development of…

There's not a school business official in the country who isn't dealing with budget cuts and trying to do more with less. This article shares some proven strategies to help school districts reduce spending and address personnel issues associated with retirement plans. Because public education employers are exempt from the Employee Retirement…

Common sense and recent research make it clear that successful schools need strong principals. Strong principals help drive school performance in many ways, from shaping a school's mission and culture to hiring, developing, and retaining good teachers. Even so, principals often get short shrift in today's debates about human capital in public…

The concluding year of a lengthy career in school administration carries its share of emotional highs and lows. For those leaving the superintendency, it's also an opportunity to reflect on professional accomplishments, the chance to recount one's tangible impact on the lives of hundreds of fellow educators and thousands of school-age children…

When people talk about human capital or talent in public education, they generally focus on teachers, not principals. That's a mistake. School districts and states generally don't take a strategic approach toward managing their principal workforce. Often, they lack even the most basic information about who is leading their schools: Where do most…

"Turn and Face the Strain: Age Demographic Change and the Near Future of American Education" outlines a fierce battle looming between the needs of public health care and education. A crisis is fast approaching that makes comprehensive improvement of America's public schools more important than ever. Faced with rapidly expanding…

"Turn and Face the Strain: Age Demographic Change and the Near Future of American Education" outlines a fierce battle looming between the needs of public health care and education. A crisis is fast approaching that makes comprehensive improvement of America's public schools more important than ever. Faced with rapidly expanding…

In late July 2007, the Internal Revenue Service dropped a bombshell in the form of new 403(b) regulations, which present great challenges for public school districts and community colleges. The challenge for employees participating in 403(b) plans is the new environment created by the requirement that 403(b) programs in existence since 1961…

Retiree recruitment is a burgeoning economic development strategy among rural communities despite uncertainty over whether later-life migrants will bring with them "Gray Gold" in the form of economic development or "Gray Peril" in the form of a reduced willingness to support the provision of local public services such as…

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the choice made by retired professional school personnel in Pennsylvania to return to work in public education. This paper builds on earlier studies of the market for teachers and administrators in Pennsylvania. In this paper we describe retiring teachers, administrators and coordinators as…

The infamous equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQs) regulation--the withdrawal of funding from students who have previously gained a higher education qualification--has cast a long shadow over adult continuing education in English higher education since its introduction in 2007. Together with the attack on funded adult provision in local…

The hunger for significance in life never ends. What changes in one's retirement is how one fills that need. For most school administrators, introspection and investigation into possibilities for post-retirement years begin prior to one's resignation; however, the intensity of thought, feeling, and deliberation moves to a much higher plane once…

In this report, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) takes a close look at the governance of the teaching profession and finds that state legislators and other state-level policymakers crafting state laws and regulation, not those bargaining at the local level, decide some of the most important rules governing the teaching profession.…

This issue, the fourth in a series on demographic forces shaping U.S. public education, discusses how the aging of the population affects education. The first section, "Shades of Gray," discusses how as the population ages, schools may face tougher competition for public resources, noting how tensions have surfaced in one Florida county.…