The study under review is the second-year evaluation report of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), a publicly funded voucher program that allows low-income students in Milwaukee to attend secular and religious private schools in that city. Its primary finding is that there were no overall statistically significant differences in…

The hearts and minds of the American people have been won over on the issue of segregation. However, the dilemma is that while an overwhelming majority of Americans would cringe at the idea of a racially segregated America, America remains racially segregated and racial equality is more ideal than real. Even though there is almost no legal…

National educational reform must be interpreted from a broader sociopolitical vantage point. Following the introduction, "The Change Process and Educational Reform" by Val D. Rust, the four papers in part 1 are devoted primarily to conceptual issues related to educational reform. They include: (1) "Problems of Educational Reforms in a Changing…

In less than 2 years after the publication of the national report "A Nation at Risk," an overwhelming majority of states adopted many of the educational reform measures advocated in the report. The rapid adoption of the reforms among states with different political cultures, policy traditions, and partisan control raises the question of…

These five newsletter issues focus on potential developments and critical trends in higher education. Feature articles include: (1) "A Reinvented Model for Higher Education" (Richard B. Heydinger); (2) "Redesigning American Public Education" (James S. Coleman); (3) "Envisioning (and Inventing) the Future" (Ian…

This broad historical survey assesses Japan's efforts to overcome dilemmas endemic to all modern school systems in industrialized societies. The book describes efforts to strike a balance between equality and excellence, individual creativity and team cooperation, standardization and innovation, and internationalism and cultural identity in the…

The real world of schools is a political world of power and influence, bargaining and negotiation. Teacher development must therefore take place within the micropolitical realities of schooling. This book describes how the micropolitics of educational leadership affect the working world of teachers and develops four approaches to leadership. Part…

This paper explores the discourse on nursery education in Great Britain. The provision of nursery education in the 1990s is in a vulnerable position, due to the changing nature of the family in society and to the lack of strong justification for its existence in the face of government intervention. A schism exists concerning the need for…

This book examines the difficulty in the United States of educating students about civic ethos. While most educators agree about the importance of civic education, many disagree over how to go about that education. This study concentrates on the role textbooks play in the debate over civic education. It examines education's role in reflecting and…

Australia is a country of fewer than 18 million people and yet, unlike some overseas systems serving larger populations, there are no nationwide teacher registration standards for those preparing to teach in government or nongovernment schools. Each school system supports its own bureaucracy for teacher employment. In the case of employment in…

Korean society is in the midst of a conflict between modern and postmodern condition. The concept of modernity is rooted in the Enlightenment, which valued reason and proposed the rational and progressive construction and transformation of society and reality. As a result of a rational differentiation between culture and society, modern phenomena…

The education profession as well as the public do not need exposure to more one-sided opinions about the need for academic preschools, about how to generate higher standards, about how poorly United States schools perform as compared to schools in other industrialized nations, and about other potentially volatile issues. In responding to the…

Part 1 of this book reproduces the second edition of Seymour Sarason's work, "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change," in which he described how change affects a school's culturally diverse environment, either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. First published in 1971, the book…

In Russia today, substantial political, economic, and social changes directly affect the preservation efforts of libraries and archives. Prepared by the Deputy Director General of the M. I. Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, this report presents a distinctly Russian perspective on the ways in which libraries and…

Educational reformers have come to recognize that establishing more challenging standards and assessments is not enough to raise student achievement. This brief identifies five challenges that confront educators and policymakers as they develop higher standards and other policies and structures to support improved student and teacher learning. It…