This book discusses the first order principles (FOPs) of college teaching and their role as the easiest route to working happily and successfully in the classroom. Part 1 lists the 10 principles: (1) moderate classroom incivilities with prosocial immediacies; (2) wait actively for the fruits of one's teaching efforts; (3) begin before feeling…

The West Virginia School Building Authority (SBA) was created by the state legislature in 1989 to carry out a mandate of the "Recht Decision," which found the state's school financing system to be largely unconstitutional. The SBA was created to sell bonds for educational facility financing and distribute the money to county school…

Intergovernmental grants are a significant part of both federal and state budgets. This report examines the federal grant-in-aid system from the perspective of fiscal impact. It focuses on the extent to which the grant system succeeds in two objectives: (1) encouraging states to use federal dollars to supplement rather than replace their own…

This digest, based on a larger report of the same title, summarizes principles for improving quality in higher education institutions. Emphasis is on the effect of the principles when they are used holistically to create a culture of academic excellence. The quality principles are based on the conceptual framework of total quality management (TQM)…

The economic decline of rural communities and the accompanying trend toward rural school consolidation are intimately connected to the American liberal and individualist world view. In general, liberalism has meant having a representative government, an economic arrangement that maximizes the freedom of accumulation, and an educational system that…

The Counseling and Student Personnel Psychology program at the University of Minnesota sought to create a graduate-level research experience which would be both instructionally efficient and educationally effective. Important skills to be learned in doing research were identified, including the development of a research question, critical review…

This book presents a collection of essays from prominent administrators and influential thinkers in higher education who offer their prescriptions for responding to the challenges imposed by higher costs and reduced revenue expectations. Innovative improvements in the operating efficiency in such areas as administration and support services,…

There is a great reliance on symbolic messages in our society, but the success of these messages depends on how they are interpreted. The variability of subjects' interpretations of commonly used visual symbols was investigated by comparing the interpretations of a U.S. audience and a Jamaican audience. Responses of 27 executive master's in…

This analytical report reviews higher education in Yemen, specifically at Yemen's national university, the University of Sana'a. It finds that university enrollment has been increasing very rapidly from 17,000 students in 1987 to a projected enrollment of 79,000 students by 2000. This explosive growth has resulted in overcrowded classrooms,…

This study of higher education efficiency evaluation consists of five country reports from five different regions of the world: Colombia, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Nigeria. The reports describe the approaches to the evaluation process in each country and in the process highlight common concerns and awareness. The studies were all…

This study describes the American system of higher education's distributive mechanism in the practice of selective admission and considers possible changes in that system. Chapter One presents the work's overall approach, a three level analysis of the current system from the viewpoints of the individual student and the individual college as well…

This study merged and expanded data from two research databases containing information on former students with mental retardation ranging from mild (N=34) to moderate (N=78) to severe (N=86). Data were obtained from the "Benefit-Cost Evaluation Project" and the "Post School Transition Project." The subjects came from different…

The lack of economics literacy is a serious problem in the United States. Today, public school students are taught little if any economics and score very poorly on economics literacy tests, with the average test score being 40 percent. This absence of economic understanding hurts the economy in the following ways: (1) economically illiterate…

A large scale study was undertaken to shed light on the question of school district efficiency, that is, the extent to which school districts are able to increase achievement beyond what would be expected from their families socioeconomic origins. Average scores on state-developed and nationally-standardized tests of third, sixth, and ninth…

The number of competing daily newspapers in American cities has dwindled until only about 50 cities boast two papers. Of the newspapers in those cities, 23 now maintain separate editorial operations but have joint printing, advertising, and circulation departments. The concept of joint operation is 50 years old, dating from the Depression years…