"What Next?" offers a detailed study of the School of the Future's first three years (2006-2009) revealing what the School of the Future can teach us about high school redesign, public-private partnerships, and the use of technology in school reform. When the school district of Philadelphia teamed up with the Microsoft Corporation in…

The environment for scientific research in public organisations is undergoing radical change, particularly with commercialisation pressures and blurring of the distinction between public and private research. The commercialisation pressures are reflected in government policy frameworks and institutional contexts for scientific work which are…

This paper analyses changes in university management structures and practices as a response to public sector reforms in Ugandan higher education using Makerere University as a case study. The study uses the organisational learning theory and a review of the higher education literature. Two adaptive responses in the management structures and…

Being a president of a member institution of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) is fraught with challenges. To name but a few: (1) The nation's financial meltdown in 2008 and the accompanying great recession has dramatically increased families' financial need and led to increased pressure on financial aid budgets; (2) Reductions in…

In this study, faculty at institutions of higher education in Southern California were surveyed to determine the ways they interpret the effects of globalization dynamics upon their various teaching and research activities. Faculty in the state's three higher education tiers spoke positively about the intellectual benefits to be gained by exposure…

In 2010, alcohol was once again the substance of choice among American youth. In fact, a greater proportion of American young people use alcohol than use other drugs or tobacco, and this use of alcohol by youth under the legal drinking age of 21 has profound negative consequences not just for underage drinkers, but also for their families, their…

Public funding for employment and training has dwindled over the past several decades. Yet in communities all over the United States, there has been considerable development of alternative approaches to help low-income people gain skills for particular industry sectors. In 2003, with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Public/Private…

The purposes of this paper are twofold: a presentation of the theoretical basis of benchmarking and a discussion on practical benchmarking applications. Benchmarking is also analyzed as a productivity accelerator. The authors study benchmarking usage in the private and public sectors with due consideration of the specificities of the two areas.…

Written in the twilight of the Mbeki Presidency, this paper considers the role that skills development has in the sustainability of the South African political-economic project. It explores some of the disarticulations of public policy and argues that these both undermine public sector delivery and open up opportunities for private provision to…

The U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top competition has provided an unprecedented opportunity for states to advance public elementary and secondary education reform. The competition's requirements encompass reforms ranging from overhauling teacher assessment to adopting common educational standards to eliminating restrictions on the…

Purpose: The aim of this article is to challenge the concept of "the learning organization" as unproblematic and inherently good. Design/methodology/approach: The research looked at how teachers--as an example of public sector professionals in a work organization that claims to be a learning organization--view their conditions for…

For many involved in further education (FE), the focus on employers' needs, in the wake of the Leitch Review of Skills, may feel a bit frustrating. In exploring what employers need from FE today, the author describes what he and his staff have achieved at Merseytravel, the priorities he, as an employer, has in mind for FE, and the challenges they…

The public history museum holds an inherent pedagogical purpose to define the nation through a history considered collectively supported by its citizenry. Widely acknowledged criticism often accompanies such exhibits and prompts calls for a more critical examination of the narratives advanced through the affirmed educational intent held by…

The purpose of this paper is to identify common patterns in central authorities' steering of universities and the institutional power in neo-liberal higher education regimes. The paper examines the regulatory mechanisms of England and Japan through Foucault's idea of "governmentality" and utilises the concept of autonomy to identify the…

The author analyzes the growth and nature of internal evaluation from the 1960s to the present and suggests that internal evaluation has been on the increase because of its perceived importance. Although the 1960s were characterized by a rich intellectual development of evaluation theory and practice, the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s ushered…