Urban small-school proponents who desire more autonomy find charter schools appealing, since they receive public money but operate independently of the district structure. Others feel that charter schools are a stalking horse for private school vouchers and privatization, part of an attempt to undermine public education, or an abandonment of…

Change in the financing of Danish higher education is traced, from item budgeting by the education ministry to a system of institutional block grants. While institutions gain autonomy in academic and resource allocation, they are required to abolish governing boards and place more responsibility on rectors and academic deans. This requires new…

In the context of rapid change in European higher education, particularly in the fiscal relationship between states and institutions and institutional demand for more autonomy, the situations of Sweden and Scotland are considered more closely. The paper concludes that the emerging search for nonstate funding and the handling of those revenues pose…

Presents a hypothetical case to explore the legal issues involved when university students, professors, and the institution itself all assert their right to academic freedom. (EV)

The charter public school movement has experienced significant growth, attracted veteran community activists and committed educators, acquired the bipartisan support of Congress, contributed to increases in student achievement, and influenced a variety of educational improvement efforts. Internal and external challenges facing charter schools are…

This article focuses on student admissions to charter schools in the United States and to autonomous (foundation and voluntary-aided) secondary schools in England. Analyses of the admissions criteria used by autonomous and nonautonomous secondary schools in England revealed that more autonomous than nonautonomous schools reported using potentially…

At the turn of the millennium, the term "spiritual" began to gain more prominence in the educational discourse in Hong Kong, both in official policy documents and in religious schools' descriptions of their own mission. Addressing each of these two cases in turn, a description of the context in which the increased use of the term has…

The future of Greece's well-being will depend on improving educational performance to boost productivity and improve social outcomes. In the current economic context, with the need to get best value for spending, Greece must and can address inefficiencies in its education system. The challenges are significant. For example, Greece lags behind many…

In the late 1980s and 1990s, states began working to decrease the level of regulation of public education, using a variety of approaches to regulatory flexibility. This paper examines the evolution of deregulation, from limited waiver programs to charter-school plans and new performance-based accountability systems that include broad-scale…

This collection of essays examines the status of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing on historical trends, the administration of universities, and the influence of higher education on the greater society. It reviews the evolution of universities in the area during the 20th century, highlighting the emergence of Latin…

The 1988 Education Reform Act precipitated major educational change in the United Kingdom. This book is a compilation of papers originally presented at the 1994 Centre for Educational Development Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) conference at the University of Warwick (England). The papers focus on changes that have occurred and are occurring in the…

This book discusses seven of the many major issues that schools and school districts face in adopting school-based management (SBM). Chapter 1 presents the rationale for SBM, and chapter 2 describes governance issues. It concludes that SBM does not threaten school-board sovereignty if SBM is properly structured and if the board does its job…

This paper presents findings of a case study that identified the new forms of accountability and control being constructed locally in the education service of England and Wales since the major legislative changes made in 1988. The changes include local school management, grant-maintained schooling, and competitive contract tendering. The 1988,…

In the early 1990s, several states developed legislation that permitted the creation of a limited number of charter schools. At the beginning of 1997, there were 428 charter schools operating in the United States. This document is the first-year progress report of the 4-year National Study of Charter Schools, sponsored by the U.S. Department of…

As of November 1996, at least 25 states had passed charter-school legislation empowering agencies of state government to enter into agreements with private individuals and groups to operate public schools. This is a guidebook for government agencies given the power to permit individuals and groups to operate autonomous public schools under state…