The work order, when used properly, provides a lasting record of the work actually accomplished and can be a valuable management tool to determine future budgets, predict equipment failure rate, and provide other important information used in decision making. (Author/MLF)

Discusses problems of economic management in higher education and suggests solutions indispensable for economic autonomy and independent planning. Changes in management methods include incentive systems, transparency in functional goals and performance, and more clarity, rationality, and fairness in appraisals. (Author/KC)

Considers some of the negative implications of using a business model for the university, which treats students as customers and education as mass production. (SJL)

The authors examine the implications for educational policies, individual learners, and the community of the current accountability movement, which requires that all educational goals and achievements be quantified and measured. They find that this technocratic model promotes efficiency but is antithetic to such qualities as freedom of choice and…

Discusses and identifies the four primary roles which pricing may perform in the delivery of community services: equity, revenue production, efficiency, and income redistribution. (CT)

Reproduces a study reported in 1899 that compared the relative advantages of producing handwriting through finger, full arm, and forearm movements and that concluded that the forearm movement was the best of the three. (GT)

The turn to energy-conscious design is inevitable. How we use energy affects the environment and eventually the world. (Author/MLF)

What superintendents can do to help new board members. (Author)

Personal speculation is offered regarding the quality of administration apparent in colleges and universities. It is suggested that the real work of academe, acquiring and disseminating knowledge, is done by professors and students and that administrators today are more interested in toughness, efficiency, and prestige than knowledge. (LBH)

Examines the comparative efficiency of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, responding to governmental concerns for accountability, value for money, and cost control. Tests concepts of cost and outcome efficiency, using data- development analysis, to gain further insights into universities' operations. Applying this methodology to…

Data collected in visits to 50 for-profit and 50 nonprofit day care centers showed no quality differences and little efficiency difference between the two sectors. Cost of increasing quality from mediocre to good was 12-16 cents per child-hour. (SK)

Offers research-based guidelines for making staff meetings more successful and productive. Principals should determine whether the meeting is necessary, define tasks and objectives, make necessary arrangements, decide who will chair the meeting, set an appropriate tone, and close the meeting after reaching consensus. A sidebar suggests…

Estimates frontier production functions for South Carolina's educational process, using data from 541 classes. Classes taught by teachers who received merit awards show greater mathematics and reading achievement gain scores, as do classes with fewer free-lunch students. There was a positive relationship between achievement and (larger) class…

A sequential-regimes job search model tested the effect of advanced notice on the duration of joblessness. Maximum likelihood estimates using data from the 1984 and 1986 Dislocated Worker Surveys demonstrated that advance knowledge significantly shortened joblessness for most labor force groups. (SK)

This rejoinder to K. K. Fung's critique of the authors' data-envelopment analysis (DEA) article argues that eliminating inefficiency by competition requires perfect information, not just freedom of entry and exit. DEA provides the necessary information, but is not intended as a mechanism to replace peer review. (MLH)