Using case studies from seven rural and regional areas, this report looks at the impact of schools and vocational education and training (VET) on community capacity. It finds that communities have developed different models to organise school-VET partnerships and that rural areas are more likely to adopt a whole-of-community model, while regional…

The 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association for Continuing Higher Education was themed "Refining Our Mission: Continuing Education's Role in Engagement, Outreach and Public Service." Opportunities were available to participate in sessions relating to outreach, partnerships and public service and perspectives on this theme were presented…

This paper addresses the potential of various proposals to reform a broad group of human-service organizations. It challenges two reform strategies that currently receive considerable attention. One strategy promotes collaboration among human-service organizations in an effort to deliver services to clients more efficiently and effectively. A…

These four papers were presented at a symposium on action learning moderated by Lex Dilworth at the 1996 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development. "Developing an Infrastructure for Individual and Organizational Change: Transfer of Learning from an Action Reflection Learning (ARL) Program" (ARL Inquiry) reports findings…

Current welfare reform efforts are based on the assumption that limiting government support will promote personal responsibility, driving welfare recipients to obtain additional education and training in order to meet employment targets. But is education and training--human capital--the answer to poverty and welfare dependency, especially in rural…

This report covers the University of Akron's impact on the income, employment, credit availability, governments, and individuals within the community in which the school is located--Summit County, Ohio. Presented is evidence of the impact, as measured by the American Council on Education economic impact model, of the university on its service…

Designed primarily for World Bank staff and their colleagues in borrowing countries, this paper summarizes why investment in human capital formation through early child development is worthwhile. Chapter 1 introduces the importance of early childhood programs, noting events that have given new visibility to children's issues at the international…

This paper presents a review of theory and research dealing with alternative teacher certification policy. It begins by examining the context for alternative teacher certification through the lens of Human Capital Theory. It defines alternative certification and describes the history and present status of alternative certification policies. The…

The interrelationship between people management practices and product market/competition was examined in a series of case comparisons of pairs of firms/organizations of the following types: professional sports teams, military services, retailing firms, information service firms, business schools, financial services, shipping services, and food and…

The "rural school problem" continues to plague current researchers, as it did school reformers of the past. There are basically two academic literatures focusing upon rural communities and their schools where rurality rather than ethnicity is the focus. The historical literature typically features tales of rural economic decline,…

This report examines the progress in human capital development made by counties in the South during the 1980s. County-level data from 13 southern states were collected primarily from the 1980 and 1990 censuses. Thirteen maps depict, at the county level, completion of high school or more in 1980 and 1990, percent change in high school completion…

This study tests the hypothesis that the local labor market structure, particularly the proportions of high- and low-paying occupations, affects human capital investment. Most studies have assumed that the direction of causation flows from the supply of human capital to employment growth. However, the creation of low-skilled jobs merely reshuffles…

Several trends indicate that rural America can benefit from information-based and service sector job creation. Among the more significant trends are the movement of people from urban and suburban to rural areas, the decreasing importance of location due to communication technology, the growth of jobs in the service section, the growing…

This paper theorizes on the pattern in which investment in human capital affects the well-being of the rural community and is affected by public policy on education finding. Outmigration from rural regions is more likely for individuals with the highest educational achievement. Therefore, remote school districts tend to underinvest in education.…

By embracing education as an economic development tool, policy makers adopt a new economic metaphor--a new way of understanding how the economy works and identifying determinants of development. Development policy has shifted focus, from providing incentives for the accumulation of physical capital to emphasizing investments in human capital. Most…