Asserts that designing public policies that effectively balance the competitive needs of the university sector with the public interest is a complex issue, and presents a general framework for analyzing these regulatory policy issues. Illustrates the framework with policies from Europe and the United States. (EV)

It is argued that university faculty, in their involvement with students, have the most direct impact on educational quality, and that impingement on their autonomy leads to reactive curriculum design, decreased motivation, and skewed values concerning research and publication. Australian university administrators are called on to use available…

Historian Joan Wallach Scott has served on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure since 1993. She was committee chair from 1999 until this past June, when she became a consultant to the committee. To mark her transition from chair to consultant, "Academe" asked her to participate in an interview about her experience with the…

The "Times Higher Education Supplement" of 9 February 2006 briefly reported that the Privy Council, tasked with approving the statutes of universities, was now going to leave their internal arrangements in their own hands. These underlying policy directions need to be set in the context of the important change of emphasis from…

Since 1994 when the General Law of Education was issued, educational authorities have been claiming that Colombia has embarked on an "educational revolution" [""La revolucion educativa"" (n.d.). From the Colombian Ministry of Education website: http://www.mineducacion.gov.co. Retrieved 23 Nov 2004] where schools have…

This article considers common dilemmas faced by schools undergoing change. The dilemmas are related to three areas: autonomy, focus, and acceptance. How teachers and administrators resolve these dilemmas is fundamental to the way change in schools is implemented. This study examines the way curriculum leaders in a regional Australian government…

The article interprets a particular set of debates on whether quality assurance in South African higher education widens democracy or not. The interpretation explores the extent to which higher education quality assurance fulfils three conditions posited for democracy (inclusion, participation and enhancement), drawing in as points of reference…

In this article, the author discusses issues raised in the Academic Bill of Rights, which he defines as a lack of intellectual diversity on faculties and in curricula, abusive use of the classroom for nonacademic agendas, and lack of equity in the distribution of student activities funds. These issues drive his call for reform in the…

This article examines the "Citizen School" project implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil as an example of how to fight against neoliberal projects. It begins by describing the broader context in which the Citizen School project was born, including the hegemonic agenda for education, first in its global aspects and then in specific…

School reform has taken many shapes over the years. Among the most pervasive of school-reform theories is school-based management (SBM), which is examined in detail in this book. The introductory chapter locates the current round of SBM in the longer cycle of educational reform, describes the extent of SBM activity over the past decade in the…

Since 1988, the governance and organization of education in England and Wales have moved decisively in the direction of decentralization and site-based management. Under the Education Reform Act of 1988 and the Education Act of 1993, local education agencies (LEAs) have acquired new responsibilities via local management of schools (LMS) and…

This book discusses the controversy over the extent to which a nation's government has the right to determine the nature of the educational system, and the limits on that right. In Great Britain, the government has established a series of Education Acts and a National Curriculum. The concepts of accountability and cost effectiveness are commonly…

In response to widespread demands for better public education and for more choice among public schools, a number of state legislatures in the early 1990s permitted educators and local communities to develop "charter" schools. This report presents the first-year findings of the National Study of Charter Schools, sponsored by the U.S. Department of…

The Colorado Charter Schools Act requires the State Board of Education to compile the evaluations of charter schools received from local boards of education and to review information regarding waivers from state regulations and statutes. This document is a response to the mandate. The study focused on the 14 schools that had been operating for at…

This publication contains the proceedings of an international conference on academic freedom and university autonomy attended by 180 scholars and representatives from 30 countries. The conference's official statement, the Sinaia Statement, follows an introduction. The Statement calls for a new understanding between universities and society and a…