A few months ago, the largest school district in Texas announced plans to close twenty-eight elementary and middle school libraries, claiming it was part of an effort to combat low test scores and discipline problems. Unfortunately, this troubling trend seems to be spreading. According to the author, multiple studies have shown that effective…

This article provides a history of the two large-scale assessment consortia that were funded in 2010 as part of the Race to the Top Competition, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC), and the Smarter-Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). I compare the goals the consortia were funded to meet between 2011…

Did the liberal art disciplines at American universities have the highest failure rate between the 1970s and the early 2000s? Important theoretical traditions indeed believe that the liberal arts are the most threatened disciplines in the academy, while other theories have differing views. This paper reexamines the vulnerability of academic…

COVID-19 has created a less-than-ideal environment for social work education and practice, especially for student interns trying their best to navigate the ups and downs of the forced termination process. Supporting students in meeting this challenge during an era marked by shifting routines, revised learning plans, altered work environments, and…

The final decades of the twentieth century were rife with education reform. "A Nation at Risk" (1983) compared American schools to their counterparts in other countries, and found America wanting while E.D. Hirsch and others decried Americans' lack of knowledge of their own institutions and heritage (Hirsch 1987). These alarms caused…

School-university partnerships not only take time and care to establish and develop but also need sensitivity and acknowledgement of work accomplished if the partnership disbands. What are the repercussions of ending the partnership abruptly with little advance notice? This article examines this question by looking at the school participants'…

The corruption of the social work enterprise is not simply episodic but systemic and long-standing including education, research, governance, and practice. Reform is unlikely since the constituency within the field and outside of it that wishes to change the situation is small and ineffective. The corruption of social work reflects the unfortunate…

Alberta Education has been engaged in reviews and reforms of special education, and attempting to describe and move toward more inclusive ways of supporting students with disabilities since 2008. These efforts have, at times, resulted in more progressive and inclusive education policies and, at times, seemed somewhat halting. The obstacle to…

In this article, we will explore the current landscape of teacher education programs in general, and specifically, physical education teacher education (PETE) from the national level down to the local level. Furthermore, we will explore the impact that the elimination of undergraduate PETE programs can have on PETE doctoral programs, including the…

Whenever a discussion opens about nonacademic employment for Ph.D.s, it is not long before someone suggests reducing graduate-school admissions. "The market for full-time scholars has fallen off a cliff lately," this argument goes, "so why not just train fewer of them?" The strategy to reduce the number of Ph.D. students recurs in those…

In order to meet the South Dakota Board of Regents requirements for an upper level writing course with global perspective for all graduates, the administration at the University of South Dakota established an interdisciplinary course to be taken by all majors. Two faculty members from different disciplines were assigned to teach each section with…

For 20 years, charter schools have held a precarious existence in Canada. Implemented in the province of Alberta in 1994, only a handful of charter schools remain in the entire nation. In this article, I explore the ideas of school choice and charter schooling and how they have largely disappeared as educational policy issues for Canadians. While…

Many schools around the world are struggling in the face of reduced funding and fluctuating enrolments. Often, the solution to this unhappy equation is quite simply to shut down facilities. But when all the costs of closing a school are considered--financial, material and human--implementing this policy calls for caution. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

Many who would define themselves as liberal progressives were heartened by the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. However, perhaps almost as many have been disappointed by Obama's policies as president. In this paper the author seeks to understand and explain the seeming reversal in Obama's policies, especially regarding education. He…

Evaluation designs for social programs are developed assuming minimal or no disruption from external shocks, such as natural disasters. This is because extremely rare shocks may not make it worthwhile to account for them in the design. Among extreme shocks is the 2010 Chile earthquake. Un Buen Comienzo (UBC), an ongoing early childhood program in…