Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, with particular attention to elementary and secondary education. Chapters from the first edition have been fully updated and revised…

Drawing on a study of new forms of educational privatization, this article examines how ideas from institutional theory can be useful in analyzing the complex dynamics behind interim assessment technologies. The study was based on qualitative research methods and included interviews, a small-scale questionnaire, participant observation, and…

Public colleges and universities today are more than institutions of academic study. They play a role in the economic and social life of their communities by engaging in partnerships aimed at enhancing their scope and brand image. This paper suggests these partnered activities do more than just manage costs and replace state support during…

This study considers why Florida has been the most aggressive state in adopting school vouchers. Vouchers are consistent with Florida's tradition of aggressive educational accountability policies, arising from the state's moderate social conservatism, openness to privatization, and state demographic characteristics. Even with this fertile…

There are very real barriers to using people, time, money, and technology well in today's public schools systems. To begin to break down these barriers, the Education Resource Strategies (ERS) has created a framework to prioritize seven urgent restructuring priorities. The authors have found that these areas represent the largest opportunities for…

Billions of education dollars are trapped each year. At this time of continued budget shortfalls when every dollar spent on education must yield maximum returns in student outcomes--states are frequently tying the hands of districts. While funding adequacy and equity must remain a priority for states, ensuring that limited resources are used as…

A policy sociology approach is taken to examine the connections between neo-liberalism, post-secondary provincial education (PSE) policy in Canada and the impact of those policies. Our thesis regarding the broad political economy of PSE is that over the last two decades the adoption of this ideology has been a major cause of some dramatic changes…

This note claims that contracting in education can be employed for initiatives of varying sizes and across a range of services. For policy-makers, contracting represents an effective means of introducing accountability in the education system. Contracting can also insulate governments from some of the criticism leveled at privatization. Moreover,…

A private organization (Education Alternative, Inc.) is presently managing nine Baltimore public schools; Christopher Whittle's Edison Project is planning similar public school management projects; a private consulting company (Public Strategies Group) recently took charge of the Minneapolis public schools. Goaded by concerns about accountability…

Since 2004, a number of Canadian provinces have initiated comprehensive reviews of their respective public post-secondary education systems. This paper examines the ways in which these provincial post-secondary education reviews are consistent with the pervasive influence of economic globalization on higher education and a more market-driven and…

Today, American education faces a crisis. It is not too extreme to say that public education hangs in the balance. Anyone who has read the history of American education knows that there have always been critics. But they did not want public education dismantled. They wanted it to be better. Today, however, there are critics who believe that public…

Discusses respective roles and responsibilities of public and private sectors in corrections field. Describes service contracting and use of private sector for rehabilitation programs carried out in community. Maintains the importance of assuring accountability and assessing the value of services, and the legitimacy of cooperation and…

This article reviews educational initiatives of state and federal government that were designed to remedy the effects of racial segregation on Black public school students in the United States after the famous "Brown v. Board of Education" decisions. Several policy and legal initiatives are reviewed, including school desegregation,…

In this article we introduce and explain a funding framework for advancing an equity agenda at the community college. The need for the framework is premised on (a) Dowd's observation that the traditional community college commitment to student access no longer suffices as an adequate strategy to achieve greater equity in society and (b) the…

In "The Transformation of Great American School Districts", William Lowe Boyd, Charles Taylor Kerchner, and Mark Blyth argue that urban education reform can best be understood as a long process of institutional change, rather than as a series of failed projects. They examine the core assumptions that underlay the Progressive Era model of…