The conventional economic arguments favoring greater public support of higher education in Britain are compared with the "new right" economists' arguments for redirecting resources and changing the nature of higher education. It is suggested that resource reallocation is difficult because of institutional bureaucracy, and uniform…

An innovative pilot program, the Integrated Family Life Education project in Ethiopia is a comprehensive educational effort involving underlying principles of: integration, involvement, cooperation, documentation, acceptability, and manageability. The program is helping to bring about significant changes in the health, nutrition, and economic…

This monograph provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the literacy proficiencies of the adult immigrant population (16-65 years old) in the U.S. in recent years and assesses their implications for the labor force behavior, employment, earnings, incomes, and civic behavior of the immigrant population. The first section will present…

To address the issue of student learning at the state level, an invitational forum of public policy, business, and education leaders was convened by James B. Hunt Jr., governor of North Carolina. The forum recommended that the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education initiate a "demonstration project" to determine whether or not it…

While many previous studies have examined the economic impact of the General Educational Development (GED) on labor market outcomes, the results from these studies are all based on regression analyses that employ questionable comparison groups. As a result, all previous studies of the economic impact of the GED likely suffer from "selectivity…

In April 2000, over 250 rural leaders from around the nation gathered in Kansas City, Missouri, to discuss rural America's future, its challenges, and policies to meet those challenges. Conference participants agreed that the current pattern of uneven rural growth is likely to persist and that agriculture will remain a key sector in the rural…

This report explores the partnerships between local development organizations and Redd Barna (RB), a Norwegian development organization engaged in child-centered development work in Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Chapter 1 of the report introduces the concept of partnership as viewed from donor and recipient perspectives, describes the…

This symposium on theory building consists of three presentations. "A Multilevel Theory of Organizational Performance: Seeing the Forest and the Trees" (Susan Reynolds Fisher) presents the process used to develop this theory and analyzes emergent insights. It discusses how the theory succeeds in mapping relationships across aspects and…

To determine what Federal Student Aid (FSA), previously the Office of Student Financial Assistance, had done to develop and implement a strategic direction as mandated by Congress in performance-based organization legislation, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reviewed FSA's strategic and annual performance plans and annual reports, interviewing…

Attention to the quality of human capital in different countries naturally leads to concerns about how school policies relate to student performance. The data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study provide a way of comparing performance in different schooling systems. The results of analyses of educational production functions…

This annual report details the activities and financial status for 1999 of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a private institution created in 1949 for broad humanitarian purposes. Following the introduction by the chairman of the Foundation's board of trustees, the report of the executive director details activities during the Foundation's fiftieth…

This paper examines the process of earnings determination in the agricultural sector of Brazil. Among the main causal factors analyzed are human capital (education and work experience), labor market segmentation, gender, social class position, level of development/modernization, and concentration of land ownership. Data on individuals employed in…

An analysis of the rate of return on educational investment for students of accounting is performed to illustrate that, in economic terms, those who work full-time while studying in association-sponsored programs receive a greater return on human capital investment than graduates of two-year colleges. (SK)

Although adult basic education has been profoundly influenced by the concept of functional literacy, definition of this concept is clouded by false assumptions. From this critique of the economic approach to literacy emerges a new approach: locating literacy in its social context and relating it to information needs and access. (SK)

Despite the magnitude of changes in both female labor force participation and labor force attachment, research suggests that young women continue to make inappropriate decisions regarding investment in human capital, that is, education and work experience, given their probable work status later in life. (CT)