Focusing on Hawaii over the past 150 years, examines who controlled the educational policy process and what values were pursued in resultant school policies. Political culture has continued to reflect limited citizen involvement while fostering the pursuit of efficiency. Understanding how a state's political culture has developed temporally may be…

Addresses Clune's school finance adequacy model from a practitioner's perspective, outlining six concerns: adequacy as a new structure or a federal categorical program; adequacy's legal basis; the chances of increasing federal Chapter 1 spending from $6.3 billion to $25 billion; program funding versus compensation focus; adequacy model control…

Meaningful change is possible only when supported by leadership at the classroom, school, district, and state levels. University of Michigan's Coalition Project was designed to change the motivational culture of a middle school by realigning schoolwide policies and practices with desired changes (emphasis on effort, improvement, and mastery) in…

Discusses the career and achievement of the late compositionist, James A. Berlin. (HB)

Describes how the English department at Willamette University set out to revise the English curriculum as a participant in the MLA-FIPSE English Programs Curriculum Review Project. Shows how the faculty redesigned the curriculum, and shares three important ideas that might be useful to other departments undertaking similar changes. (HB)

Several superintendents have recently left school administration for careers in private education companies such as Education Alternatives, Inc., the Edison Project, and Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc. Former superintendents from New York, Rochester, Saint Paul, and Detroit reflect on their reasons for switching careers. Salary considerations…

Summarizes the negative effects of high-stakes standardized testing, presents the national testing vision outlined by the National Education Goals Panel, and identifies curricular and technical problems needing resolution before the NEGP's vision can be realized. Negative effects include politically inflated scores, narrowed curricula, and…

In an excerpt from "Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School," Theodore Sizer states that what is needed is raised expectations within the various agencies that now affect standards rather than their demotion and replacement by a more centralized system. Public policy must address the two barriers to excellence--public…

Four studies are discussed, showing that micropolitics evolve within a complicated, contradictory, dynamic, and interwoven world. The methodology of micropolitics must be examined via more appropriate means than those used in the studies critiqued. An approach committed to a direct effect on the practice of education is recommended. (RLC)

Advocates the move to collaboration in writing centers. Describes three different ideas of writing centers (as "storehouse,""garret," and "Burkean parlor"). Discusses where the focus of control lies in each. Urges careful examination of what collaboration means and how definitions of it locate control, to avoid…

The nation's two teacher unions' lobbying and political action efforts have been the subject of considerable criticism. In addition to the federal level, state and local union political action committees exist. Reviews the agency-shop issue, and estimates union dues paid and how they are spent. (MLF)

Presents, in dialogue form, reflections on the administration of an English department and a writing program (and the relationship between the two) by colleagues who held those positions for many years. (SR)

An initiative petition passed in 1982 for a 1-cent sales tax accounted for between 13 and 15 percent of the total public school budget in Missouri as of the 1991-92 school year. Outlines the steps necessary to gather the necessary signatures from registered voters and to get the measure approved. (MLF)

Discusses tension between claims of the university intellectual elite and ordinary members (students and teachers) and explores ways in which the tension is developed and resolved, arguing that it is a necessary condition for supporting and maintaining democracy within the university. (SM)

This essay on EC 606 264, which found that more intense early intervention programs for children with disabilities were not more effective, comments on the "political incorrectness" of the results, the possibility for misinterpretation of the results, and the need to reexamine beliefs about what contributes to effective intervention programs. (JDD)