Like many grant-making philanthropies in Canada, the Winnipeg Foundation for years had no history of giving directly to schools, fearing that could let governments off the hook for public education. In 2003, the Winnipeg Foundation invested $3 million over five years in one of the city's most impoverished neighbourhoods, with a local school as the…

Public engagement is increasingly advocated and applied in the development and implementation of technological innovations. However, initiatives so far are rarely considered effective. There is a need for more methodological rigor and insight into conducive conditions. The authors developed an evaluative framework and assessed accordingly the…

This paper examines the process by which all post-compulsory education in New Zealand has become integrated under one administrative structure, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), with the intention of developing a single coordinated system of tertiary education. In particular, adult and community education (ACE), the least formal and…

This article examines the influence of the No Child Left Behind Act on the decision making of rural principals and teachers about curriculum and instruction as well as the possible long-term effects on rural education. Data were gathered from 101 rural elementary school principals in Missouri and 76 rural elementary school teachers in Maine.…

This paper advances the knowledge base of social work education by employing a critical social work framework to inform teaching strategies that 1) raise critical consciousness, 2) uncover privileged positions that inform research, and 3) conceptualize social work practice that disrupts privilege and oppression. The premise of a need for such…

This study reports on findings from a survey of Massachusetts' school principals that examined their perceptions of the nature and quality of certification programs. Results indicate that "when" participants were certified (pre or post NCLB) and "where" they were certified (public, private, alternative programs) has a…

Federal regulations concerning the development and implementation of alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards include a set of safeguards intended to ensure that eligible students have access to grade-level general curriculum. These regulations concerning curricular access and opportunity to learn for students with…

Canada's provincial and territorial governments are committed to implement the Labour Mobility chapter of the "Agreement on Internal Trade" (AIT) in 2009. This article examines the implications of this agreement for teacher certification and teacher education programs. It argues that the full impact of AIT will not be immediately…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to further develop an emerging thread of quantitative research that grounds investment in school infrastructure in a unified theoretical framework of investment in human, social, and physical capital. Design/methodology/approach: To answer the research question, what is the impact of investment in human,…

The lax underwriting in non-prime mortgage markets is widely perceived as one cause of the recent difficulties in the housing market. Policymakers are currently considering moves such as enforcing more careful underwriting to provide additional discipline to mortgage markets. This research explores the possibility of another approach to supplement…

Debt limits, interest coverage ratios, one-off balanced budget requirements, pay-as-you-go rules, and tax and expenditure limits are among the most important fiscal rules for constraining intertemporal transfers. There is considerable evidence that the least costly and most effective of such rules are those that focus directly on the rate of…

New developments and challenges regarding early childhood education (ECE) policy and practice in Norway and in the Flemish and French communities in Belgium are presented in this issue. There are clear differences between the countries when comparing systems they have chosen for ECE. In Belgium, supervision and responsibilities for education,…

In Central Asia, the post-Soviet transformation period has been accompanied by significant economic and social costs, including the widening of the gender gaps in politics, economy and the social sphere. Tajikistan, which receives the largest amount of international aid and has the worst record of gender inequity in Central Asia, has quickly…

Personalisation is an emerging "movement" within education. Its roots reside in marketing theory, not in educational theory. As a concept it admits a good deal of confusion. It can refer either to a new mode of governance for the public services, or it qualifies the noun "learning", as in "personalised learning". The…

This paper focuses on the World Bank/IMF (International Monetary Fund), the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the WTO (World Trade Organisation) as institutions of transnational policy making. They are all at present making education policies which are decisively shaping current directions and developments in…