Perhaps the most ambitious example of the way in which flexibility and accountability have been brought together can be found in the State Flex and Local Flex demonstration programs. Although no additional resources are provided to participating states and districts, the enhanced flexibility granted under State Flex and Local Flex allows…

For those concerned with school improvement, resource-oriented mechanisms are a critical facet of efforts to transform and restructure daily operations. Resource-oriented organizational mechanisms focus specifically on ensuring the appropriate use of existing resources and enhancing efforts to address barriers to student learning. This report…

African teachers in general and South Africans in particular face tremendous challenges, several of which are curriculum related. These challenges manifest themselves at various levels and in various areas, that is, from national level to within the classroom. There are various role players who may make a contribution towards overcoming these…

Most federal programs supporting elementary and secondary education are state-administered; the federal government allocates funds to the states, which then suballocate the funds to local educational agencies (LEAs) and other agencies. This report presents information on the states' use of funds from the federal fiscal-year 1992 appropriations.…

This paper focuses on the common sources of etiologies of conflict in multicultural contexts. Multicultural communication is the creation and sharing of meaning among citizens of the same geopolitical system who belong to divergent tributary cultures. The sources of conflict in multicultural relations can be grouped into five broad categories.…

School systems face the challenge of meeting high expectations with limited resources. Reductions in operating grants and increasing expenditures have exaggerated the problem. The Innovation Network was established by the Saskatchewan School Trustees Association in 1995 to help boards of education make the best use of available resources. This…

Many observers of educational policy feel that in the rush to devolve responsibility, difficult questions about the capacity of states and localities to be accountable for results are being overlooked. This document describes the different strategies used by 10 states to move toward a results-oriented system of services, supports, and…

New Mexico has a great sense of pride in its school funding formula as originally conceived. Over time, however, an increasingly politicized atmosphere led to changes in the formula. This paper incorporates input from school administrators and state policy makers to identify a variety of issues influencing the current status of school finance in…

Given state activism in education reform during the 1980s, a major concern in the development of education policy is whether reform states have increased their financial support for education in order to achieve desired objectives. This paper describes findings of a study that explored the distributive nature of state and local policy choices in…

The Chapter 1 program represents the nation's largest federal investment in elementary and secondary schools. This report describes the operation of Chapter 1 services, with a focus on instructional practices and classroom organization. Specifically, the report describes how services differed by the poverty level of a school and by the type of…

Generally, construction projects undertaken by school districts in New York State are financed in part by state aid. The Education Department's Facilities Planning unit approves state aid for school-district construction projects outside New York City. This report presents findings of an audit that evaluated whether the Unit management's oversight…

Three joint international seminars on governmental roles in organizing and promoting educational research and development were held as part of a study conducted by the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This document contains the proceedings of the third…

The decade 1980-90 saw a spate of educational reconstruction occurring simultaneously in many countries. This book argues that the school restructuring of the past 10 years has been called the "education-reform movement," but that term is somewhat misleading. The current reform efforts seem to aim primarily at the control and governance of both…

A comparison of how American and Canadian universities receive and spend funds using data from fiscal year 1991-92 explored the link between general economic conditions and the financial health of universities. The analysis found that with respect to revenue patterns, Canadian universities receive their funds mainly from provincial governments…

Analysts of public school-district funding have recently begun to examine the allocation of resources to schools, the equity and effectiveness of school-based funding, and the productivity of the national public education system. Each of these factors may influence the educational resources that a child receives. This document contains papers by…