The central economic competitiveness issue for the Obama administration is creating an aligned, 21st century public education system that prepares students,workers and citizens to triumph in the global skills race. On Jan. 20, 2009, the Obama administration will take command of the White House facing unprecedented challenges to the U.S. economy…

In recent years a number of reports have raised alarm over the deteriorating state of U.S. science and technology (S&T) competitiveness. But a recent report by the RAND Corporation, "U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology," argues that the U.S. continues to lead the world. RAND's report has been interpreted to suggest that the "clarion…

Twenty-five years after the seminal report "A Nation at Risk," American education remains in a state of crisis. Millions of students continue to pass through the public schools without mastering basic skills and knowledge. Policymakers and the public must recognize both this persistent failure and the attendant need for systemic reform…

The process of changing U.S. higher education institutions along a corporate model has been going on for several decades. It consists of changes, some open, some obscured, on various fronts: the erosion of tenure by attrition; the simultaneous increase in the use of contingent faculty; the rise in tuition; the dramatic decrease in federal and…

Efforts to introduce school choice have produced pressures on public schools to improve their performance. As a result, many public schools have embraced the total quality management principle of continuous improvement. In this article we explain that while this may be well intentioned, it may have perverse unintended consequences. A likely…

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and social sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise…

A study explored advertising students' beliefs and attitudes about their learning and motivations within the context of the American Advertising Federation's (AAF) National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). One hundred twenty-one students from 13 NSAC teams were surveyed in a 3-part questionnaire. Results indicated that students relished…

This directory of domestic nationwide resources for gifted education lists names, addresses, and telephone numbers for: 42 companies providing catalogs of materials, 84 competitions and organized activities, 12 relevant organizations, and 16 publications. (DB)

This study indicated that the child's decision to respond generously to the needs of others may be a function of his evaluation of the relative fairness and deservedness of the other's plight. Whether competition renders the child less responsive is a subject for further research. (JMB)

To explore the theoretical relation of newspaper competition to overall news quality, a study used a model of newspaper competition based on economic assumptions to investigate whether the product quality of a newspaper is positively related to the financial expenditure on it, and whether newspaper circulation is positively related to quality.…

A study examined whether the suburban press is better off if competing metropolitan daily newspapers are allowed to merge operations in a joint operating agreement (JOA) as provided by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, or if the weaker of the two dailies is allowed to close down, throwing the suburban paper into competition with a monopoly…

Neither of the two major forensics associations uses an ideal point system for the team sweepstakes award at debate tournaments. The National Forensics Association (NFA) awards points for preliminary round ballots and uses a 3-tiered system of team awards based on entry size. They restrict preliminary round sweepstakes points by capping the total…

This annotated bibliography has been compiled as a guide for the researcher of swimming in referring to experimental studies in the physiological, mechanical, psychological, and medical aspects of swimming. The studies have been briefly annotated to enable the reader to quickly determine the salient points the authors made in their studies. The…

Three papers consider telecommunications policy in Great Britain and Germany specifically, and the nations of the European Economic Community generally. The first paper, "German Telecommunications Law and Policies" (Ernst-Joachim Mestamacker) outlines the present structure of telecommunications in West Germany, and discusses deregulation…

Two papers consider the effects and advantages of a nation's development of a modern information technology. The first paper, "Information, Information Technology, Modern Telecommunications and Economic Growth: A Case Study of New Zealand" (Herbert S. Dordick), examines the effects of information technology on the economies of such…