Although the nature of knowledge is contested, "official knowledge" is promulgated in national standards such as New Zealand's National Qualifications Framework. Autonomy and accountability are used in the politics of official knowledge by competing interests. Critical theory provides guidelines for adult educators to deal with the…

Presents, in the form of a fable, a challenge to readers to expose the Emperor's new education as being more about getting rid of public education than about literacy. (SR)

Pre/post assessment of 27 masters' degree nursing students who completed a health policy course showed a significant increase in their perceived political advocacy and involvement, a small increase in their ability to understand policy context, and the greatest increase in their political knowledge. (SK)

Discusses why Catholic school parents and teachers have advocated for educational reform and how, as a result, public policies can become more responsive to the needs of our Catholic school communities. States that Catholic school advocacy networks help Catholic school communities to advocate federal/state public policy agendas. (VWC)

Describes the early history of the Upward Bound program, including the role of President Johnson's vision, the Task Force on Poverty, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and Community Action Programs; influences on the development of the program; establishment of the program's administrative structure; pilot programs; and early problems leading to…

Discusses results of international study to determine what 14-year-olds in the United States and several other countries know and understand about citizenship, government, and the law. Reveals gaps in U.S. students' civic knowledge and participation. Calls for greater emphasis on civic education in schools. (PKP)

Examines the idea of civil society, comparing the Marxist and post-Marxist definitions of it. Discusses the political agendas of socialism and radical democracy and their impact on adult education. (Contains 59 references.) (SK)

Explores the roles that school psychologists theoretically might adopt as change agent. Analyzes data from a sample of practicing school psychologists to see the extent to which these roles are actually manifest in their orientations toward serving as change agent. Outlines techniques for school psychologists to learn to better adapt to political…

This article focuses on Bourdieu's contribution to the analysis and transformation of the field of education. It shows that, when closely examined, Bourdieu's writings on education reveal not only one but at least three competitive or complementary policy theories. There is a common principle to all of them, that is the invisibility of policy,…

In this article, the author analyzes public education, and whether America can survive without it. There is a deep sense in which the phrase "public education" is redundant: Education is public, above all in a democracy. To think of it any other way is to rob it of its essential meaning. For education is an essential public good addressed to young…

There are some commonalities among the successful leaders in education technology. They tend to be flexible and a little disrespectful of the status quo. They take risks, but they also know the politics of the situation and know how the game is played. Timing in leadership is as important as the ideas being proposed. One cannot always anticipate…

This note puts the research project which led to this Special Issue in the context of developments in and around environmental policy over the past two decades, from the perspective of someone closely involved. It links political and institutional problems over sustainable development to the changing role and authority of science in contemporary…

You can see it in their eyes--the hurt, the doubt, the humiliation, the embarrassment. They are "broken wing" superintendents, those who have hit the glass wall of rejection and failure. They flew, some with no warning, smack into the window pane of contract buyouts or termination. The high flyers have flopped from the sky, dazed onto the deck,…

Consistent with the intent of the original school-lunch program, created by Congress in 1946 to provide "nutritious agricultural commodities" to children, the major purpose of today's school-lunch program is to ensure that children, especially those from poor and low-income families, have nutritious food at school. Even as contentious and partisan…

The Chinese nationality is a great one, possessing a glorious tradition of patriotism. Patriotism is the banner that mobilizes and inspires the Chinese people to unite and struggle, a great force that moves the social history of the nation forward, and a common spiritual component of all of the country's nationalities. Now, the nation's people are…