Public education and the preservation of American civilization is keyed to the well-being of the nation's 50 largest school districts. Large urban districts are difficult to operate, serve largely nonwhite and needy populations, and are undergoing badly eroding property tax bases essential for their funding. We desperately need informed,…

After Proposition 13 passed in California, a series of 19 major bills imposed fiscal limits on the K-12 school system. One action is assigning a fiscal advisor to assume control in a district in financial distress. Lists the symptoms of a financially ill school district and highlights 24 items of a recovery plan. (MLF)

Paul Ciotti's monograph "Money and School Performance" exposing the "desegregation debacle" in Kansas City (Missouri) Public Schools is an improperly aimed salvo in the "money matters" debate. Actually, money should not be thrown at politically dysfunctional schools with incompetent teachers, administrators, and board…

Troy Academy at Green Mountain College, in Pultney, Vermont, was a three-year experiment that allowed responsible area high-school juniors and seniors to take challenging college-level courses in a supportive environment providing for their needs. Despite the program's unqualified success, Green Mountain ended the arrangement because of financial…

Charter-school proponents overlook three overarching concerns. Funding must come from existing school budgets; charter-school populations are more homogeneous than in most public schools; and the constitutional separation between school and religion will be compromised. Studies in California, Arizona, and other states reveal accountability and…

During a meeting of the Ohio Education Association, teachers raised concerns about a pending state mandate requiring school districts to provide mentoring programs for beginning teachers. Concerns relevant to teacher unions/organizations included funding for adequate teacher release time, the mentor role, mentor selection, training, scheduling of…

Describes the collaboration between the school districts in western New York and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO). Explains that when the Orchestra was forced to close, the schools bonded with the BPO and had "community nights" in which students performed before the concerts, involving parents and the community, to help raise…

Increasingly, professional schools are addressing the issue of whether a financially successful program has a responsibility to support other, less financially successful programs, and how university fund raisers can assure donors that their gifts will benefit specific programs and not be siphoned into others. Law and business schools, often…

Analyzes a 1986 national survey (n=2,081) to examine differences in psychological and economic distress between remarried and divorced persons, and if economic distress differences explain differences in psychological distress between married and divorced persons. Findings show that remarried persons have significantly lower rates of economic and…

Summarizes a survey of 239 New Zealand elementary school educators. New Zealand's experience shows that national policymaking, which largely excludes school staff, still substantially influences everyday school operations. When site-based management occurs in a vacuum, devoid of interest, support, initiatives, and well-grounded information, school…

Using principal-components analysis, this paper highlights the nature of the alleged gap between new and older universities in the United Kingdom, as portrayed in recently published league tables. Although the tables may capture some recognized differences, they rank performance by limited criteria that favor the old university sector and fail to…

The organizational transformation process begun several years ago by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers has resulted in the association's once-solid financial base collapsing, bringing internal tensions about the transformation to the surface. Debate centers on the organization's ability to be a policy leader…

Using latent variable structural equation modeling, we tested a theoretical model linking financial strain, neighborhood stress, parenting behavior, and adolescent adjustment. The sample consisted of 305 African American families living in inner city neighborhoods. Of the families, 40% were living at or below the U.S. poverty threshold. The…

The author lampoons twenty-first-century academic priorities. Using a fictional campus facing state-mandated budget reductions, the author parodies a system that retains high-salaried administrative and public relations positions, special-interest majors, athletic programs and junior/ad-hoc faculty, while relinquishing admissions staff, library…

This study is the sixth in a series of studies conducted by the American Association of School Administrators on the impact of the economic downturn on schools. AASA launched the series in fall 2008 in response to state budget shortfalls, federal buy-outs and interventions, and a series of additional events characterizing a slowing, stagnant…