In 2004, the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) released a "State Education Standard" focused on the issues and challenges facing rural schools. Ten years later, NASBE facilitated a study group on rural education to discuss what has changed and what new challenges require the attention of state education…

An online community of practice (OCoP) is a group of people, who are brought together by a shared interest and with the aim of deepening their understanding of an area of knowledge through regular interactions facilitated by computer mediated communication (CMC) tools. An OCoP can potentially provides teachers with those elements of effective…

This study explores the official policy of the state of Israel in regard to principal preparation programs, a topic which has hardly been investigated so far and has gone through significant change in recent years. Public documents from Israel were explored. Document analysis was a three-stage process--condensing, coding and categorizing. The…

Ever since the beginning of the Great Recession, higher education has braced for the impending age of austerity and changing demographics. Now a reality, these conditions threaten the ability of institutions of higher education to remain competitive in an ever growing global marketplace. This article presents several core SEM strategies that can…

This paper examines the responses of a Malaysian public university, namely Universiti Sains Malaysia, to the impact of globalisation vis-à-vis three key issues: international students, academic publications and world university rankings. There are concerted efforts put in place by the university to recruit more international students. But a global…

California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB) received funding from National Science Foundation's (NSF) Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program to recruit Noyce Scholars from upper-division science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, graduate students, and professionals switched to STEM teaching from other fields (NSF…

This essay examines the "Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information" (Section 9528) provision of the No Child Left Behind Act and its influence on the success of intervention programming for college and career readiness in Title I high schools. Using critical policy analysis, I show how Federal and State…

The McDonaldization of higher education refers to the transformation of universities from knowledge generators to rational service organizations or "McUniversities". This is reflected in the growing dependence on a casualized academic workforce. The article explores the extent to which the McDonaldization thesis applies to universities…

This article calls attention to the social and educational challenges facing boys and men around the world. Next, it highlights how the outcomes for males of African descent across the Americas, in particular the USA, are especially troubling. Moreover, a critique is presented about the recruitment campaigns that see increasing the number of Black…

This article proposes that there exist "glass doors" impeding men from entering and participating in ECEC work. Across developed countries, men's participation as carers and teachers in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services tends to be viewed as highly desirable and much has been written about the importance of men in ECEC.…

Great schools need great leaders! In fact, according to recent research by Seashore Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom and Anderson (2010), "To date we have not found a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership (p.9)." As such, North Carolina's Race-to-the-Top (RttT) grant earmarked…

Numerous reports on the US economy argue that American higher education institutions must prepare a greater number of workers for employment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), in order for the US to remain globally competitive. To do so, addressing the underrepresentation of women and people of color who pursue degrees in STEM…

Nationally, only half of Latino males graduate from high school (Contreras, 2011). Scholars are beginning to critically examine the various internal and external influences which contribute to low academic achievement for Latino males. This qualitative study uses a human ecological theory to examine how Latino male high school students with high…

Randomized experiments are commonly used to evaluate if particular interventions improve student achievement. While these experiments can establish that a treatment actually "causes" changes, typically the participants are not randomly selected from a well-defined population and therefore the results do not readily generalize. Three…

This monograph focuses upon areas of special concern to those working with honors at smaller colleges and universities: mission, recruitment, facilities, administration, budget, and curriculum. In each area, the author makes some general suggestions about overall operating principles, note specific issues that can lead to difficulties, and suggest…