The publicly supported higher educational institutions, with their large demands on State treasuries, are naturally objects of inquiry to the taxpayer, who is more and more alarmed at the increasing public burdens. The alarm is often based upon misconceptions and inaccuracies. The only way to check such fear is through the proper use of facts.…

Prefaces this journal issue on policy-making in early childhood services. Reviews ideas about policy-making processes and policy agendas and what processes shape them, with particular reference to the relationship between research and policies on early childhood services, setting a context for the subsequent articles in the journal. (Author/AA)

Analysis of early childhood human resource development and management policies in South Korea and six other countries precipitated guidelines for establishing national policy for early childhood education and care (ECEC) in South Korea. The guidelines address basic principles, educational purpose, early childhood education and care operation,…

Federal, state, and local policy issues that affect models of school-linked integrated services and systems are examined. Barriers to school-linked service integration, state policy trends, the realities of finance, establishing state systems of support for the changing approach, examples of state approaches, and the impact of devolution are…

South African development and education policy documents were analyzed to examine postapartheid government goals concerning educational equality and social justice. Documents concerning equity of educational access, quality, outcomes, and governance reveal a shift from a populist social-democratic orientation to a conservative neoliberal position,…

Four themes appear consistently in discussions of college and university institutional research in the twenty-first century: accelerating change, need for information access, need for better comparative data, and the dilemma that occurs when institutional research offices are required to provide both policy analysis and technological competence.…

Examines the context of rural communities in Australia and the extent to which inaccurate stereotypes about rurality have misshaped public policy and programs. Advocates developing a rural development plan that capitalizes on the unique attributes of rural Australia and focuses on rural empowerment, environmental concerns, entrepreneurship, and…

Explores contradictions between "workfare" and higher education that constrain the academic success of poor rural Iowa women: loss of welfare-related college support if temporarily denied AFDC, lack of child care funding, and constraints on transfer from a two-year to a four-year college. Recommends utilizing an "everyday…

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has issued policy guidance on educating students with visual impairments. The application of the free appropriate public education requirements, least restrictive environment and placement requirements, and procedural safeguards in federal statutes are discussed. (CR)

Shortly after coming to power, Tony Blair's New Labour government expressed its strong commitment to tackling the problem of school expulsion. The Treasury's 1998 Spending Review included the bold target to achieve "a reduction by one third in... exclusions (from 12,500 to 8,400 permanent exclusions a year) by 2002". This article gives…

In this age of heightened concern about teacher quality, calls for new policies and practices concerning recruitment, induction, and retention are familiar to many. The current enthusiasm for policies to recruit, support, and retain new teachers runs the risk of adding more clash and clang to an already cacophonous policy environment. In this…

This paper provides an analysis of the controversy surrounding the standard setting process conducted by ACT Inc. for the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). This process is the most thoroughly planned, carefully executed, exhaustively evaluated, completely documented, and most visible of any standard setting process of which the author is…

Faced with the evident impossibility of providing free or significantly subsidized secondary and higher education to all, many poor and middle income countries choose to educate only those students who are most promising, using public examinations as means of distributing scarce resources. This paper investigates the inequality implications of…

We review a plan that attracted the attention of public sector planners everywhere, Oregon's 1989 "Oregon Shines: An Economic Strategy for the Pacific Century". In particular, we focus on Oregon's aspirations for world-class workforce quality; a status that the state's planners argued would contribute to a host of other outcomes that…

Although much of the evaluation research conducted to date on correctional boot camps has produced less-than-favorable results, unimpressive outcomes do not appear to have had a significant impact on their steadfast endurance. To some extent, this may be a reflection of the basic reality that correctional practices have not traditionally been…