For some time the author looked for a tool to let students apply what they are learning about critical analysis in the science classroom to a relevant life experience. The opportunity occurred when a proposal to use environmentally friendly cleaning products in town buildings appeared on the local town meeting agenda. Using a copy of the proposal…

This article presents the historical review of environmental education in China. As China's economy began to grow, environmental pollution and ecological destruction initially appeared locally in the early 1980s. These local environmental issues were primarily managed and controlled by state and local environmental protection agencies. In…

The structural reforms of the education system in France (1959, 1963, and 1975) were part both of a global process of democratisation of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernisation project in which knowledge producers (experts, scholars and consultants) played a crucial role. Instead of a national approach or a…

Sociologists have documented how important place is in people's lives. C. Wright Mills (1959) argued that people must understand that they do not exist in a vacuum, but that their values, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by the particular time and place in which they themselves exist. The development of this "sociological…

Introduction: Knowledge translation implies the exchange and synthesis of knowledge between researchers and research users, employing a high level of communication and participation, not only to share the knowledge found through research, but also to implement subsequent strategies. Prince Edward Island, a rural province in Canada, provided the…

During the last decade in Belgium and the Netherlands, comprehensive reform of primary education emanated from central policy. In both countries the national authorities set up a program to encourage and facilitate the new primary school concept. This paper reports on 25 schools in the Netherlands and 52 in Belgium that acquired special funding…

The 1989 defeat by voters in Fremont (California) of the nation's first measure to fund child care services at the local level provides valuable lessons for generating public support for child care services. Information was gathered from interviews with 23 city policymakers and administrators, from campaign materials, and from participant…

This analysis is the second of a series of seven reports on the ways that the urban fiscal crisis has affected children. During the 1970s, as a result of general public disenchantment with government, 39 states (78 percent of the 50 states) appear to have enacted tax limitations that affected children's services. Of these states, 37 imposed…

This study analyzes local school council (LSC) meetings in Chicago (Illinois) during their first year of operation. The Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 created a radical shift in authority from the central bureaucracy to the LSCs, empowering the LSCs to set educational policy and govern schools. The councils hire and evaluate the principal,…

This guide is intended to assist states and service delivery areas (SDAs) in addressing the new oversight responsibilities and opportunities stipulated by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The first section examines the objectives and outcomes of the project to develop this and the other eight JTPA evaluation guides in the series. A listing…

This paper outlines an attempt to include analysis of political, economic, and social considerations within a study of the feasibility of a school district merger in Guilford County, North Carolina. The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which discusses major conditions in each of three school districts in the county. Two of these…

This document contains testimony and prepared statements from assistant secretaries in the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services; directors from the Department of Health and Human Services; the general director of Beth Israel Medical Center; the president of Phoenix House Foundation, Inc., a drug-free treatment…

Citizen involvement in the public decision-making process can be facilitated if appropriate forms and functions of involvement are used. The issue cycle, which can help public officials to ensure that citizens have constructive and timely input into the decision-making process, involves awareness of some condition in the community; community…

Intended for local municipal officials and their advisors on public finance issues, this publication describes the legal environment surrounding bonds and examines some of the factors affecting the political feasibility of bond issues. Four categories of state controls of municipal bonds are discussed: limits on the amount of debt municipalities…

The role of the public has generally been dismissed as a significant factor influencing the process of curriculum formation in large urban school districts. This paper presents an indepth case study focusing on the role of the public in curriculum formation in one school district over a 21-year period during portions of the tenure of 3…