School choice is a means to achieving numerous important goals: It fosters upward economic mobility, instills civic values, engenders an appreciation for the arts and humanities, and imparts students with the knowledge and the skills necessary to pursue their life and career goals. Education choice, at its essence, serves as a vehicle through…

This article is concerned to respond to recent UK governments' attitudes to teachers, who are predominantly women, and who are denied a voice and sense of professionalism. It looks to the role of teacher research in school decision-making, including school improvement, historically in England, which set a pioneering example in years before the…

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences and summits, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets--with a…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers, and the promotion of competition are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a federal program to provide additional assistance to academically struggling students in high-poverty areas, has long contained a provision called the "supplement-not-supplant" requirement. This provision was designed to ensure Title I funds were spent on extra educational services…

Voucher programs and their supporters have had a tough last few years. The Florida Supreme Court declared vouchers in that state unconstitutional in 2006. Three years later, the Arizona Supreme Court did the same. In 2007, voters in Utah handed a resounding defeat to a voucher program there. In 2009, the U.S. Congress refused to continue funding…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers and the promotion of competition, are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

The universal belief that poverty is a matter of low income and correctable through economic growth, more jobs, and increased income is precisely why poverty has persisted in the United States and elsewhere. We view the poor as those not yet in the middle class, but it can be shown that not all the poor can join the middle class, even in the…

Positive developments are identified, notably a strong policy and planning environment linked to overall strategy for growth and poverty reduction, leading to vigorous commitment to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Abolition of school fees, and a measure of compulsion, resulted in significant gains in school enrolment, including…

Despite 30 years of anti-poverty programs in the United States, poverty in the United States has intensified. One such program, Head Start, demonstrated that it is possible to enhance the educational outcomes of poor children. Updated and improved, Head Start has the potential to become a more successful weapon against poverty. Inadequate funding,…

Describes early childhood education reform policies in England based on recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Explores implications of these government reform initiatives for early childhood education in the United States. (Contains 39 references.) (PKP)

This article discusses the ten-year plan for the development of basic education in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has to meet a major challenge, which consists of reducing poverty among the population, reducing exposure to crises of all kinds, and reducing inequality between regions and between different socio-economic sectors. In order to achieve…

The 900 Schools Programme, adopted in March 1990, was designed to improve the quality of education in Chile's most impoverished public primary schools through "positive discrimination," the channeling of additional resources to the 969 schools that initially took part in the project. The 900 Schools Programme has sought to: (1) improve…

Noting that educational achievement has a social context, this publication advocates the creation of community schools that integrate welfare services and education to ensure that the health and emotional needs of disadvantaged children are met, thereby ensuring a level ground for these children's education. The role of the community and of social…

This Kids Count report is the second in a series examining statewide trends in the well-being of Indiana's children. After an introduction and an explanation of the statistics, sections of the statistical report contain data on several indicators of well-being: (1) Indiana's children and their families, including population estimates, ethnicity,…