Fueled by declining revenue from the housing crisis, skyrocketing energy costs, and an economy in general disarray, the public is pressuring school administrators to make broader and deeper cuts in their operating budgets. As the baby boomers retire, put their houses on the market, and downsize, one will see more downward price pressure on home…

This chapter describes the system office for community college institutional research in California. As the system IR office for the largest community college system in the nation, it is often looked to as a leader for other states and community college IR systems. The author notes the office's administrative environment, its staffing and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to validate, in an Italian sample, a multidimensional training motivation measure (T-VIES-it) based on expectancy (VIE) theory, and to examine the nomological network surrounding the construct. Design/methodology/approach: Using a cross-sectional design study, 258 public sector employees in Northeast Italy…

The purpose of this qualitative, correlational study was to determine if a relationship existed between employee value for learning, supervisor support for training, education, and leader development, perceived access to learning opportunities, demographic characteristics, and pursuit of lifelong learning. A researcher-generated survey was used to…

We examine a program that enabled Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in Kenya to hire novice teachers on short-term contracts, reducing class sizes in grade one from 82 to 44 on average. PTA teachers earned approximately one-quarter as much as teachers operating under central government civil-service institutions but were absent one day per week…

There has been much research attention on ability level, motivation, and self-efficacy of students at schools of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). However, there is scant research on vocational choice, career development and aspirations of these students. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by asking…

This report is part of a series of reports that provides information on the structure, function, finances, taxation, employment, and pension systems of the United States' approximately 90,000 state and local governments. This report presents data on state and local government employment and payroll based on information collected by the 2013 Annual…

This issue of "Legislative Review" takes a look at the news in higher education from April 18 to 28, 2011. This Legislative Review reports that: (1) HB 1003, the NDUS budget bill, was passed by the Legislative Assembly; (2) SB 2057, the Centers of Excellence bill that became the Department of Commerce budget bill, was approved by the…

On June 8, News Corp., a media company owned by Rupert Murdoch, snatched two leading school district administrators to head its new education division. Peter Gorman, former superintendent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (N.C.) Schools, is the unit's new senior vice president, and Kristen Kane, the former chief operating officer of the New York City…

High unemployment rates entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular job security, by exploiting sector-specific institutional differences in the exposure to economic shocks. Public servants have stricter dismissal…

In March 2014, The National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER), in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education, convened a Technical Working Group (TWG) of practitioners to provide input on research needs in education and how research could be more…

When it comes to public-sector pensions, writes lead author Michael B. Lafferty in this report, "A major public-policy (and public-finance) problem has been defined and measured, debated and deliberated, but not yet solved. Except where it has been." As recounted in "Halting a Runaway Train: Reforming Teacher Pensions for the 21st…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the similarity between the human resource strategies (benefits, due process, employee participation, employee skill level, general training, job enrichment, social interactions, wages) currently utilized at a private, nonprofit university in Virginia, and those reported in the research…

The city of Los Angeles will face enormous budgetary pressures from the growing deficits in public pensions, both at a state and local level. In this policy brief, the author estimates that Los Angeles faces a total $152.6 billion liability for pensions that are underfunded--including $49.1 billion for the city pension systems, $2.4 billion for…

During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine the benefit enhancements to the teacher pension…