Presently in the United States there are 4.4 million English language learners (ELLs) in public schools, with California public schools being home to more than 40% of these students (Rumberger & Gandara, 2004). Research indicates that it takes an individual up to seven years to fully develop a second language (Collier, 1987; Krashen, 1994).…

Recognizing the potential of accountability tests to alter classroom instruction, an overview is provided of the federal government's past influence on educational assessments. The past 50 years has witnessed the function of federally engendered educational assessments shift from monitoring the use of federal funds for programs prescribed for…

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is the nation's oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization committed to engaging people everywhere in promoting the well-being of children, youth, and their families and protecting every child from harm. By publishing a diverse range of views on a wide array of topics, "Children's…

Few people have been more involved in shaping postwar U.S. education reforms--or dissented from some of them more effectively--than Chester Finn. Assistant secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, and an aide to politicians as different as Richard Nixon and Daniel Moynihan, Finn has also been a high school teacher, an education professor, a…

Through a pre-service teacher cultural exchange, the authors trace the development of a global perspective, working specifically within Hanvey's concept of "perspective consciousness". From qualitative observations, interviews and written reflections, the data of four education students who traveled to Macedonia from the United States…

This paper addresses prospective policy relationships between health and physical education (HPE) and contemporary education policies. It specifically explores the opportunities and challenges that contemporary education discourses present for policy and curriculum development in HPE. Contemporary education discourses of lifelong learning,…

This historical account is told as a narrative from the authors' perspectives of Project Giant Step, which might be one of the most successful teaching-of-reading projects in history. There are a few purposes in telling this story. First, it is in times of chaos that real innovation can be made. It is then that people take chances and it is not…

Background/Context: Literacy education has always been hotly contested, and in England the debate has recently intensified in controversies over synthetic phonics teaching and the National Literacy Strategy. This article brings together four theoretical and policy contexts in studying this debate: (1) the long-standing and on-going "reading…

This paper looks at the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an important part of the international trade law system and explores if and how it affects the steering capacity of a nation state regarding higher education. It offers a new conceptual framework to look on the impact of GATS on higher education within its increasingly…

Purpose: This research aims to examine the difference in the availability, adequacy and functionality of physical facilities in centralized and decentralized schools districts, with a view to making appropriate recommendations to stakeholders on the reform programmes in the Nigerian education sector. Design/methodology/approach: Principals,…

The modern South is a thriving region that is increasingly like the rest of the United States; however, that has not always been the case. Indeed, the political history of the American South is one that has been focused on the integration of this historically underdeveloped region into the remainder of American society, economically (especially in…

This essay examines Leo Strauss's pedagogical method in his teaching on rights. The goal in this essay is not to present Strauss's argument for or against any particular conception of rights. In fact, it is to dissuade readers of Strauss from seeking such conclusions within Strauss's texts, and to argue that readers' attention turn toward the…

Cross-curriculum comparisons help open up new perspectives on old issues. The flight from physics by students is one such issue. Here a comparison is made with music education and language education. Where these comparisons provide useful insights they can also warn against knee-jerk panaceas. It is suggested we need to understand how and why…

The names that school boards give to public schools can both reflect and shape civic values. It is increasingly rare for public schools to be named after presidents -- or people, in general -- and increasingly common to name schools after natural features. This shift from naming schools after people worthy of emulation to naming schools after…

Cambourne and Turbill trace the growth, change and finally marginalisation of progressive approaches to literacy education by examining whole language philosophy in Australia from the 1960s to the present. Using a critical lens, Cambourne and Turbill describe how whole language has been positioned throughout the last nearly 50 years in terms of…