Introduces A. Lee Fritschler, the new Assistant Secretary leading the Office of Postsecondary Education at the Department of Education. Notes that although the position has lost power and influence since the rise of the department's "performance-based organization" unit which runs student aid programs, Fritschler and others see…

Summarizes the comprehensive approach to tackling problems of poor neighborhoods developed by the British government's Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), analyzing neighborhood decline and describing the SEU's National Strategy for Neighborhood Renewal, which emphasizes improving public services in England, building inclusive partnerships locally that…

In the debate about whether the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is "fully funded," 6 different definitions are used. The purpose of this article is to explore the implications of using each of these very different definitions. The 1st definition is that the law is fully funded because of large percentage increases in the federal appropriation.…

While the USA PATRIOT Act has altered how certain types of federal intelligence investigations affect libraries, the act also greatly alters how researchers can study information policy issues related to libraries. To date, the gravity and scope of the act's implications for researchers of library services, resources, operations, and policies have…

In this article, I outline the central tenets of an emerging theory that I call Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) to more completely address the issues of Indigenous Peoples in the United States. TribalCrit has it roots in Critical Race Theory, Anthropology, Political/Legal Theory, Political Science, American Indian Literatures, Education,…

Another topic involving privacy has attracted considerable attention in recent months--the "student unit record" issue. The U.S. Department of Education concluded in March that it would be feasible to help address lawmakers' concerns about accountability in higher education by constructing a database capable of tracking students from institution…

Where is the manual on American higher education in the 21st century? In this article, the author argues that there is none and that it is up to the federal government and higher education leaders to provide this strategic vision. She further states that the federal government and higher education leaders must have the vision to see where higher…

The National Research Council report "Scientific Research in Education" claims to present an inclusive view of science as it responds to federal government attempts to legislate educational research. This author argues, however, that the report in fact narrowly defines "science" as positivism and "methodology" as quantitative. These definitions…

Outlook is the monthly newsletter for the Council for American Private Education (CAPE). Each issue contains information relating to private education such as: new legislation and regulations, the most recent research, court rulings, national trends, federal initiatives, private school news briefs, and more. This issue contains the following…

For this report, the Board assessed the Institute's progress in three areas: 1) Establishment of research priorities to guide its investments into the next decade; 2) Creation of a rigorous peer review process for grants applications and reports; and 3) the Institute's efforts to ensure its work is useful to practitioners and policymakers.…

With its focusing on high-stakes testing in reading and math, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum. This focus comes at the expense of instruction in social studies, the arts, science, and health and denies many students access to the quality curriculums that students in more affluent schools enjoy. NCLB is now the prescribed method of treatment for…

This paper situates paradigm talk with its insistence on multiplicities and proliferations in tension with a resurgent positivism and governmental imposition of experimental design as the gold standard in research methods. Using the concept of "coloring epistemologies" as an index of such tensions, the essay argues for proliferation as an…

This paper examines paradigm proliferation in the context of ongoing efforts by the federal government in the US to regulate academic research. It argues that these efforts amount to an attempt to reposition and de-center universities as sites of knowledge production, not just about education but across domains. The paper examines this politics as…

This study of school climate underscores the importance of the quality of interpersonal relationships in a school to student achievement. This study improves on previous studies in three ways: First, it makes use of a parsimonious school climate framework that is easier to interpret than previous measures; second, it replaces a subscale that…

The looming expiration of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has prompted a flood of commission reports, studies, and punditry. Virtually all of those analyses have assumed that the law should and will be reauthorized, disagreeing only over how it should be revised. They have accepted the law's premises without argument: that…