The structure and effectiveness of the National Diffusion Network (NDN) as a national system, and the characteristics of the diffusion and adoption processes for the dissemination of exemplary educational practices were evaluated by the Stanford Research Institute. Evaluation methods included a review of pertinent documents, the administration of…

This paper describes the five-year Florida Foster Care and Adoption Plan which was developed to facilitate the provision of more effective services to children needing full time care outside the parental home. The paper is divided into five chapters plus an introduction and summary. The introduction outlines the problems facing the social service…

In the wake of the women's movement of the 1960's and 1970's, sexism has emerged as an issue in American education. Sexism refers to rigidly prescribed and therefore limiting roles for either sex. The American school, since its beginning, has been given the responsibility for teaching attitudes and values and for preparing young people for…

This chapter of "The Best of the Best of ERIC," Volume 2, contains 17 summaries of documents and journal articles on alternative schools, all of which are indexed in either "Resources in Education" or "Current Index to Journals in Education." The materials included deal with various aspects of this topic, such as reasons for success or failure of…

The Child Nutrition Act of 1966 authorized the establishment of the School Breakfast Program (SBP). In 1975, the law was amended to require its expansion "to all schools where it is needed to provide adequate nutrition to children in attendance." The federal law requires an active state effort to plan for the expansion of the SBP and to…

Since 1970, in response to a variety of external and internal pressures, many postsecondary institutions have undertaken projects to improve the quality of undergraduate education by rethinking what is involved in a liberal education and revising the process as well as the content of the education they offer. Innovative programs, instructional…

Investigating the feasibility of a human resources campus designed to locate all Williamsburg County (a rurally disadvantaged South Carolina county) health and social service agencies in one consolidated area, project objectives were to investigate: agency characteristics; ownership, management, and financing aspects of the campus concept;…

Institutions are pervasive phenomena in that they prescribe the boundaries for what individuals can do on a day-to-day basis. The office of ombudsperson has been created in many universities and political units in order to minimize the degree of conflict between individual goals and those of the institution. Three roles for ombudspersons exist:…

An innovative project of cooperative evaluation by principals and teachers of their schools was initiated in 1977 in over 70 large primary schools throughout Queensland, Australia. The background and purposes of the project are described and a schedule for a school evaluation project is suggested. A booklet "A Guide for Cooperative School…

This paper discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of three alternative philosophical and practical approaches for the equitable distribution of state aid to local school districts. These three approaches include the "equity through uniformity" approach, implemented through a Full State Assumption school finance model; the…

John Dewey said, "Learning is thinking about experience". This dictum accurately reflects the rationale for outdoor activity as experiential education. The term "outdoor learning" refers to a set of activities which have the following characteristics in common: environmental contrast (a sharp environmental change for the participant); physical…

The relationship between the secondary education system and wider political, economic, and sociocultural developments in Africa is examined. Special emphasis is given to the problems of political ideology and education in Zambia; but as Zambian socialist ideology and educational history show similarities to other African nations, the author's…

This paper examines the phenomenon of declining school enrollments from the viewpoint of the school district superintendent and discusses what steps the superintendent should take to cope with the problem. The author devotes much of his attention to the process of closing schools; he outlines specific strategies the board of education and…

After the fur trade reached the Ojibwa during the early 17th Century, tribe structure and function rapidly changed. The intensity of social life increased as the Ojibwa and neighboring tribes gathered to exchange fur pelts for European items. Trade became so important that intertribal hostilities arose and an almost unrestrictive slaughter of…

The Center for Research on Women (CROW) at Stanford University along with the Communication Department, the Psychology Department, and the School of Education conducted a study on the image of women in advertising and suggested ways to improve women's image in the advertising media. With the objective of sponsoring some alternatives to expedite…