In this article, a noted linguist reflects on his tumultuous foray into politics. For years George P. Lakoff has been at the center of some of the biggest intellectual disagreements in linguistics (most famously with Noam Chomsky) and has helped create an important interdisciplinary field of study, cognitive linguistics, that is reshaping people's…

This paper examines the convergence of urban and education policy in inner Sydney, and posits a politics of place as a useful frame to both understand policy and undertake policy analyses. It reiterates calls for place to be taken seriously in education policy studies, but also proposes that it is equally important to strive for preciseness when…

Although public schools are usually the biggest item in state and local budgets, spending figures provided by public school officials and reported in the media often leave out major costs of education and thus understate what is actually spent. To document the phenomenon, this paper reviews district budgets and state records for the nation's five…

In a number of Western nations, concern over literacy and numeracy standards has put huge political pressure on education systems to improve the situation. Here in New Zealand, the government has recently introduced literacy and numeracy standards designed to improve basic skills in these key fields of achievement. What is perhaps less evident is…

This paper presents the keynote speech by Professor Steve Smith, President of Universities UK, delivered at Universities UK Annual Conference last September 2010. In this speech, Professor Smith focused on two sets of issues: firstly, the future of the UK economy and, secondly, the potential pitfalls of the decisions that are shortly to be made by…

This paper is based on three beliefs. First, technology can engage and challenge students' thinking. Second, technology can assist students in creating quality work. Finally, computer-generated student-work can be used as educational tools in productive ways that other student-work cannot. This article suggests new ways to use old technologies to…

The mass media are an essential constituent in the construction of a nation's and an individual's self-image. Whether people like and know it or not, from early childhood on people are surrounded by media images and messages that to a great extent shape their perception and understanding of the world as well as contribute to their identity…

This article examines the on-going saga of citizenship education in the UK against a backdrop of conceptual confusions and contradictions around the question of what it means to share a civic identity. Noting calls to grasp the social and political realities of an emerging cosmopolitanism, and move towards a more identity-based conception of…

This article presents the author's critique of "Students' Right to Their Own Language" (SRTOL), a resolution affirming the legitimacy of dialect from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). "Students' Right to Their Own Language" remains the official position statement of the guild of college compositionists on…

America's university presses are situated within a network of over one hundred universities, learned societies, and scholarly associations. According to a pamphlet put out by the American Association of University Presses, these presses "make available to the broader public the full range and value of research generated by university faculty."…

Just as in the United States, political changes in the United Kingdom and other nations affect education policy. Louise Stoll, professor at the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London, offers a different view on policy in these excerpts from a conversation with Tracy Crow, Learning Forward's associate…

The dichotomy between the growing enlightenment of the American people on matters of public policy and the deepening entrenchment of corporate power in civil, political and economic institutions renders any optimism about the uprooting of corporate rule problematic. One of the gateways to the nexus of power in Washington has been the Trilateral…

The history of the school lunch program is laden with the political wrangling and compromises that usually beset massive government initiatives, and as with other government initiatives, the results of the wrangling and compromises have tended to be sadly durable. The school lunch program has consistently been viewed and managed not primarily as a…

Giving everyone an equal opportunity to participate in higher education and to compete for society's resources is the foundation for the existence of the college entrance examination system. Despite the persistent imbalance between the supply of and the demand for higher education, the foundations of the entrance exam system have not been shaken;…

School leadership and teacher professional development are two well-defined fields of research within the education literature, yet there is relatively little research that has examined the leadership of teachers' professional development and learning. The study reported in this paper seeks to understand the experience of teachers who have…