A shifting political landscape could significantly affect the upcoming congressional review of the No Child Left Behind Act, even as states and school districts continue to grapple with the requirements of the nearly 4-year-old federal law. The law is slated for reauthorization in 2007, and that process is starting now, at least informally, as…

A consensus is growing among members of Congress, educators, and corporate leaders in favor of a stronger federal effort to bolster mathematics and science education from the earliest grades through college. Some of the ideas under discussion on Capitol Hill include improving teacher preparation, promoting effective instructional strategies, and…

Some assume that the only way academics can engage the politics of the day is by coming out of their ivory tower and protesting in front of the White House. In conveying knowledge, the academy has a far more important and subversive way of dealing with political issues. Knowledge provides people with a way to perceive the world. Imaginative…

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has recently issued the Action Plan for the Development of Civic Morality. It is a profound exposition on the importance of the development of civic morality and its guiding ideology and policy principles. It puts forward the basic moral standards of patriotism, respect for the law,…

Both New Labour and the Conservatives are keen to emphasise choice and diversity in crucial areas of public provision--and particularly with regard to education and health. In this article, "FORUM" co-Editor Clyde Chitty concentrates on recent proposals by the two main parties for promoting greater choice in secondary schooling in…

In this article, the author discusses the persistence of President Bush on the tradition of America's two previous presidents by naming the White House Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, which aims to reduce the Hispanic high school dropout rate--now to the point where one in three Latinos fails to complete high school,…

For years many from the Left have been calling for educational reform, pointing out the shortcomings of public schooling for its antidemocratic structures and policies, irrelevant and sometimes racist curriculum, and myriad other faults. And social studies teachers and curriculum developers have borne the brunt of much of these criticisms. Now the…

This five-year study examined the effectiveness of an innovative approach to service-learning embedded in a one year site-based alternative route to teacher certification. The ten-week school-based study investigated the influence of service-learning on the multicultural perceptions, cross-cultural communication skills, and social justice…

This paper engages with questions of logic and its politics to explore how those of us in early childhood education can become critical consumers of "brain research". The research truths we use to construct classroom practices decide the meanings of our actions, thoughts and feelings and our interactions with children. Following Foucault (1980), I…

This paper discusses the formation, character and contradictions of social partnerships. We report on a specific initiative, the Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLEN) established by the Victorian Government in Australia in 2001, documenting the nature of this initiative and how it is playing out. We draw attention to some of the tensions…

This article is concerned with the politics of lifelong learning policy in post-1997 Hong Kong (HK). The paper is in four parts. Continuing Education, recast as 'lifelong learning', is to be the cornerstone of the post-Handover education reform agenda. The lineaments of a familiar discourse are evident in the Education Commission policy documents.…

This article examines the politics of educational transfer in a rural Alaskan school district with schools in two Alaska Native villages and one non-Native community. The author examines why and how the district imported standards-based education. While the district presented its reform as a rational, consensus-driven policy process, this…

This article's fundamental argument is that the reading instruction and reading research have been shaped by political forces desiring to privilege particular approaches to instruction or particular combinations of methodological and epistemological perspectives on research. The swings in both dominant pedagogies and dominant research paradigms…

Concerns about the effectiveness of traditional preparation programs have yielded a wide-ranging debate about new approaches to recruiting and preparing leaders. The resulting policy debate features two general camps: those who wish to refine and bolster the existing system of preparation and licensure and those who advocate a move away from…

This article discusses the inherent political nature of educational systems and the tensions that arise between this political nature and the agenda to promote education as a public good. Current debates about the efficacy of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) are used to illustrate this point. Although there is promise in the goals of NCLB, the…