President Barack Obama is putting new money to save educators' jobs and help states refurbish aging school facilities at the center of a nearly $450 billion plan to jump-start the sluggish economy. The author talks about the president's plan which is sure to face hurdles in a politically polarized Washington where one house of Congress is…

At a time when many states are adopting controversial measures to launch or expand private school vouchers, Republicans in Michigan are taking a different direction, moving ahead with a plan that would greatly expand the menu of public school choices for students and parents. GOP lawmakers, who control both state legislative chambers, have…

This paper addresses perceptions and applications of teacher evaluation by Arab elementary school principals. Analysis of semi-structured interviews with fourteen Arab principals showed that most of the principals identified teacher evaluation as a strategy to improve teaching and learning levels and consequently to improve students' achievements.…

This article critically examines how interactions between social changes, social harmony, and historical memory shape school music education in China. As a historical review and documentary analysis, it traces the historical development of music education and examines the Chinese government's role in such interactions over time. The article argues…

In his seminal work "Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy", Alexander George (1993) lamented the great divide between academia and the foreign policymaking community, arguing that greater interaction between scholars and policymakers would produce better policy. We share George's belief that scholars and practitioners each have…

The author argues for an interdisciplinary perspective to study the complexities of educational equity and transcend the limits of previous research. He focuses on the racialization of disability as a case in point; specifically, he reviews the visions of justice that inform the scholarship on racial and ability differences and situates their…

This article describes the instructional methods of four high school government teachers during their coverage of the 2008 presidential election. By analyzing the ways in which these teachers attempted to generate interest in the election and further their students' conceptualization of politics, the author seeks to better understand political…

William Lowe Boyd was there, making a difference in the study of politics of education, both intellectually and organizationally, at key moments in the development of the field. In fact, the field and study of the subject itself were linked politically, as scholars interested in research on the political science of how schools operate were…

What is the landscape of the racial politics of public education in the age of Obama? To what factors can we attribute the seeming educational policy consensus from Washington, DC, to the states and from philanthropies and policy entrepreneurs in urban school districts? How should we understand opposition to the policy menu? This article examines…

Interdisciplinary approaches are often seen as necessary for attacking the most critical challenges facing the world today, and doctoral students and their training programs are recognized as central to increasing interdisciplinary research capacity. However, the traditional culture and organization of higher education are ill-equipped to…

This article follows the events and obstacles of two International Society for Performance Improvement members as they traverse the education community in pursuit of applying human performance technology into their system. The story is a work in progress with definitive direction as well as tips and insight to others wishing to make an impact in…

This paper seeks to examine the plausibility of the concept of "Civic Friendship" as a philosophical model for a conceptualisation of "belonging". Such a concept, would hold enormous interest for educators in enabling the identification of particular virtues, attitudes and values that would need to be taught and nurtured to…

In this article, the author argues that urban school reform falters, in part, because of the lack of an organized political constituency among the stakeholders with the most direct interest in school improvement, that is, parents whose children attend urban schools. The author examines community organizing as a potential strategy to build such a…

This article presents a brief overview of the state of university language education in the United States. Despite the impact of the world economic crisis on university language education in the United States, the profession has not yet been impacted to the extent many believe it has. Current scholarly debates allow for both a sober assessment of…

The present paper offers a reflection on school textbooks produced and introduced by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the year 2000 onward. The aim is to examine the debates over these textbooks, by situating them over the backdrop of larger geopolitical dynamics and intra-Palestinian social and political struggles.