For years now, educators have looked to international tests as a yardstick to measure how well students from the United States are learning compared with their peers. The answer has been: not so well. The United States has been falling further behind other nations and has struggled with a large achievement gap. Federal policy under No Child Left…

All European states have a primary obligation to establish and maintain governmental schools everywhere, but as the result of political struggle and constitutional guarantees, they have also allowed and often financed non-state schools based on special pedagogical, religious or philosophical ideas. Depending on the level of state grants for…

A review of two recent federal court cases concerning school principals who experienced adverse job actions after they engaged in speech about fiscal misconduct by other employees indicates that the courts found that the principal's speech was made as part of his or her job duties and was not protected by the First Amendment.

The article attempts to analyze through a critical approach the changes taking place in the domain of public education systems when the financial conditions are reformed due to the capitalist crises and recession. Its basic aim is to examine the extent to which the size, the quality and the existence itself of the education provided by the state…

Soldiers deserve respect for their courageous sacrifices, and a strong military is necessary to the safety of any nation, but militarism--excessive emphasis on the military and its interests--threatens the cultural balance of society. Militarism endangers the quality of school music education due to its tendencies to (1) encourage allocation of a…

Challenging the claims of pension boards and other groups about the cost-effectiveness, fairness and flexibility of the traditional defined benefit pension plans still in place in 38 states, this report includes a report card on each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with a detailed analysis of state teacher pension policies, and…

Once considered a strategy to support working parents with child care needs, the majority of states now view access to high-quality preschool programs as a critical long-term economic investment in the future workforce. For the third year in a row both Republican and Democratic policymakers made significant investments in state-funded pre-K…

The challenge of updating curriculum to align with Common Core State Standards is a national one felt by states, districts, and teachers alike. Teachers generally express enthusiasm for the Common Core, but consistently cite a lack of high-quality curricula as an impediment to teaching them. The demand for core-aligned quality materials has far…

"The Mirage" describes the widely held perception among education leaders that they already know how to help teachers improve, and that they could achieve their goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if they just applied what they knew more widely. However, research suggests that despite enormous and admirable investments of time…

There is currently more focus than ever on the importance of earning a college degree. At the same time, many students and parents are dubious that America's expensive, one-size-fits-all higher education system can adequately educate students for an ever more diverse and sophisticated world of work. There are other educational options that are…

This investigation focuses on participation and related investment patterns in job related non-formal education (NFE) in selected European countries. Broadening previous research formats of NFE are distinguished by investment including financial and time investments by employers, employees and public authorities. By this, company-sponsored and…

The analyses presented in the Technical Report, "Which Centers Participate in Head Start or Public Pre-Kindergarten" characterize centers that have at least one child whose enrollment is funded through Head Start or Public Pre-K funds. This supplement to the technical report provides interested readers with technical details of the…

The primary obstacle to faster progress in U.S. education reform is hard to put your finger on, because it's an absence, not a presence. It is not an interest group or a manifest social problem. It is the infrastructure we never built for identifying what works. It is the organizational framework we've not yet constructed for building consensus…

Since the turn of the 21st century, universities in Canada have undergone significant changes. Student enrollment has exploded. This issue of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Education Review provides an analysis of the current state of university finances in Canada, as well as longer-term trends in university revenues and…

A phenomenon with far-reaching effects on nonprofit investment management and governance has become a little-noticed yet powerful force in boardrooms over the past decade. Despite its wide-ranging implications, this development has largely gone undocumented. This paper seeks to draw attention to this change and its implications, and to trace a…