South Africa's black universities face declining interest among black students, who now have more options than under apartheid. The crisis comes as South Africa considers ways to restructure its postsecondary-education system to cut costs and avoid duplication. While black enrollments are rising at other institutions, the numbers of all students…

The governance of Canadian schools is undergoing change. Provincial ministries of education are pursuing contradictory policy initiatives: local school boards are being consolidated to become more "efficient," and individual schools are developing school councils to become more "democratic." This paper applies Jurgen Habermas's…

Studied efficiency differences in Finnish senior secondary schools by Data Envelopment Analysis, using four variant models. Average efficiencies in the most extensive models were 82% to 84%. Considering parents' educational level increased average efficiency to 91%. Tobit analysis showed school size did not affect efficiency. Input and output…

Instructional-time analyses illustrate how school management, social/cultural welfare programs, high-stakes testing, system policies, and "organizational efficiencies" combine to cripple enormous blocks of annual instructional time in Chicago Public Schools. Administrators should rethink allocated time and schedule tests, special events,…

Rapid growth of private secondary schools in Tanzania in the 1990s was fueled by excess demand and looser government policies. Longitudinal data on secondary school characteristics and student performance suggest that the expansion was accompanied by declining access for disadvantaged students, high teacher turnover, and narrow interschool…

The University of California San Diego replaced its manual staff merit-increase-recommendation process with an online computer program to reduce workloads and improve the quality of the final recommendations. The highly successful system has been enthusiastically embraced by the campus community and recognized by the National Association of…

This paper aims to examine current nationwide youth fitness test programs, address problems embedded in the programs, and possible solutions. The current Fitnessgram, President's Challenge, and YMCA youth fitness test programs were selected to represent nationwide youth fitness test programs. Sponsors of the nationwide youth fitness test programs…

Adult education has long been the Cinderella of the education system. This is not helped by the fact that there is currently an impasse between employers, government and individuals over who should finance such training. So what, if anything, can philosophers do to help resolve the normative question of who ought to pay, setting aside for the…

All teachers probably want to save hours of planning per week, as well as create innovative lesson plans that connect with kids. This article presents several teachers who have saved hours of planning by embracing technology in their classrooms. This article also provides several strategies that teachers can use to save a great amount of…

The prevailing view among leaders in the university community is that America is not investing enough in higher education. A recent survey of the American economy by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) echoed that concern. After all, college graduates are dramatically more productive than those without higher education…

To cut costs, some administrators are contracting with the private sector for such services as pupil transportation, facilities maintenance, and cafeteria operations. Proponents of competitive contracting assert that it can provide public schools with the kind of expertise, flexibility, and cost efficiencies not always available with inhouse…

This monograph provides definitions, guidelines, and recommended practices for assessing and improving institutions of higher education in South Carolina which are congruent with the accreditation standards and criteria of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The first section defines key terms and states that overall institutional…

This paper examines issues in rural education related to aims, curriculum, and finance. It questions the notion that educational restructuring is necessary for the purpose of improving economic competitiveness. Wigginton, a rural educator, proposes that the aims of education should be: (1) to provide a firm grounding in the basic skills; (2) to…

The purpose of the Public Library Effectiveness Study was to define effectiveness for the public library institution. The research was designed not to measure effectiveness or evaluate particular libraries or groups of libraries, but rather to identify the feature or features of a public library that most directly attest to its effectiveness. The…

This volume contains short papers and commentaries from a conference on rural education in Iowa. Prefatory notes compare the characteristics of Iowa rural students and rural schools to those of the North Central states in general, and discuss two rural education issues repeatedly identified at the conference--equity of educational opportunities…