Back in 1983, the National Commission on Excellence on Education issued a dire warning: The United States' "once unchallenged, pre-eminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world." Policy observers say such calls have been a leitmotif in the national discourse on…

Festival performance is no trivial endeavor. At one midwestern state festival alone, 10,938 events received a rating over a 3-year period (2001-2003). Such an extensive level of participation justifies sustained study. To learn more about variables that may underlie success at solo and small ensemble evaluative festivals, Bergee and Platt (2003)…

In the schools, each day, teachers see cell phones, laptops, iPods, personal digital assistants, computer games and more. They are struggling to cope with this technological profusion as new devices seem to appear almost daily. With the pace of technological change, the emergence of new technologies, demographic changes and trends towards…

This article provides an updated review of recent empirical research on the potential impact of private school vouchers. It addresses 3 questions: (a) do students that use vouchers to attend a private school obtain better outcomes than would be obtained in a public school? (b) Do vouchers encourage student sorting and how does sorting affect…

This study presents the results of an electronic survey of 2,500 randomly selected alumni from the graduating classes of 1970 through 2002 of Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management. Of the 2,500 alumni, 581 responded. Thunderbird required a minimum of 4 semesters of foreign language for graduation. The survey…

At present, approximately 2 million students worldwide study outside of their home countries, a number that a recent report suggests will increase to 8 million by 2025. Many nations have become interested in student flow across borders in the past couple of decades for a number of reasons. Industrialized countries are recognizing the need to…

Alex Bloom is one of the greatest figures of radical state education in England. His approach to "personalised learning" and the development of a negotiated curriculum was immeasurably more profound and more inspiring than anything to emerge thus far from the current DfES. His approach to student voice was much more radical than anything…

The purpose of this paper is to use an historical approach to examine the changing nature, size and diversification of education and training in New Zealand. In particular, attention will be concentrated on the impact of the introduction of competition into the New Zealand tertiary education industry since 1989. It will examine the relationship…

In "Academic Capitalism and the New Economy," the author, and her colleague, Sheila Slaughter, describe a cultural system that valorizes higher education's dual economic roles: generating revenue for academic institutions and producing knowledge and wealth to boost the global competitiveness of corporations. This system depends on a mode of…

Chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes") and bonobos ("Pan paniscus") (Study 1) and 18- and 24-month-old human children (Study 2) participated in a novel communicative task. A human experimenter (E) hid food or a toy in one of two opaque containers before gesturing towards the reward's location in one of two ways. In the Informing condition, she attempted…

Extant literature on relationship marketing tends to focus on for-profit firms and their relationships with important stakeholders. However, higher education institutions face many of the same intense competitive forces that have made relationship marketing a practical choice for many for-profit firms. Therefore, it is not surprising that many are…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a thinking model to recommend to the vocational education institutions for planning their educational business in the face of marketization. Design/methodology/approach: The systems approach is adopted for developing the model. It is not only used for the conceptualization of the principles of…

There can be little argument that the design jury features as a key symbolic event in the education of the architect. However, whilst the centrality of the design jury as a site for learning disciplinary skills, beliefs and values is now widely acknowledged, there continues to be considerable disagreement about what is learnt and how. While…

Charter schools elevate choice and competition to foster educational innovations. Indeed, these market-style mechanisms are intended to challenge standardized practices associated with district administration of schools. However, a comprehensive review of practices in charter schools indicates that, although some organizational innovations are…

In the selective contracting era, consumer choice has generally been absent in most state Medicaid programs, including California's (called Medi-Cal). In a setting where beneficiary exit is not a threat, a large payer may have both the incentives and the ability to exercise undue market power, potentially exposing an already vulnerable population…