There has been a universal movement towards government-regulated standardisation and high-stakes assessment. In the United States, this has resulted in the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Because of the predominant focus on high-stakes reading and writing assessments required by NCLB, teachers in the subject area of English/Language Arts (ELA)…

For the first time in the history of collective action, the offline world has experienced a virtually organized and enacted union strike. While this was the first publicly noticed political action in a virtual world, others have been going on for several years now. As virtual worlds continue to grow in popularity, this type of protest of action…

For over a century, history teachers throughout the United States have selected textbooks as the primary instructional material for their classrooms, while textbook authors and publishers have continuously produced a unified nation-state narrative that presents United States history as a series of objective historical facts for student…

In a world plagued by enormous, complex problems requiring long-range vision and interdisciplinary insights, the need to attend to the influence of dogmatic thinking on the development of high ability and creative intelligence is pressing. This volume introduces the problem of dogmatism broadly, explores the nature and nuances of dogmatic thinking…

This volume bridges the gap between contemporary theoretical debates and educational policies and practices. It applies postcolonial theory as a framework of analysis that attempts to engage with and go beyond essentialism, ethno- and euro-centrisms through a critical examination of contemporary case studies and conceptual issues. From a…

This book provides an illuminating account of teachers' own reflections on their experiences of teaching in urban schools. It was conceived as a direct response to policy-related and media-generated concerns about male teacher shortage and offers a critique of the call for more male role models in elementary schools to address important issues…

The 2011 Governors Education Symposium, co-hosted by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Hunt Institute, focused on advancing education reform with limited resources, improving postsecondary completion and productivity, preparing career- and college-ready students and measuring and evaluating effective teaching.…

The May primary election added seven school district referenda to the total number occurring in Indiana since 2008, three of which passed and four of which were rejected by voters. In the 2011 primary election, there were five General Fund referenda and two construction referenda. Of General Fund referenda, two passed (Crown Point Community School…

In 2010, the pension plans of state and local governments came under increased scrutiny in response to their generally weak financial positions and mounting costs to taxpayers. By some measures, these funds are as much as $3 trillion short of the assets they would need to cover the promises they have made to government workers and retirees.…

The improvement of teacher education in Russia to make it more appropriate to current conditions must involve changes in both techniques and the presentation-of-self of the teacher. The development of the schoolteacher as the carrier of socially and professionally significant abilities is a key task of pedagogical education today, one that is…

Each year, the U.S. invites thousands of foreign-born and foreign-educated professionals as immigrants and on temporary visas, including academicians. In some academic programs such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, these foreign-born professionals represent an imposing mass, while in others, they are relatively invisible. This…

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the leadership traits of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, an African-American woman of history, using the servant leadership theory developed by Robert K. Greenberg and the ten characteristics of servant leadership as conceived by Larry C. Spears. This exploration seeks to identify the significant…

As America moves toward the ideals of its founding documents, some scholars have termed it "postethnic America," where culture rather than color or ethnicity will have more influence over the country's affairs. In postethnic America, the country will realize that all "are created equal," and no groups will be treated…

The concept of state has a specific importance for Turkish-political culture. However, the influence of textbooks in constructing the state concept in Turkish culture from Ottoman to modern Turkish Republic has not been adequately researched. In this paper, the relation between the state perception in Turkish culture and textbooks from Ottoman to…

Objective: To discuss implications for educational policy and practice relevant to closing the achievement gap based on the literature review and synthesis presented in 7 articles of the October 2011 special issue of the "Journal of School Health". Methods: Implications for closing the achievement gap are drawn from analyses of current literature.…