Although a relatively new idea in the U.S., weighted student funding (WSF) for individual schools has a long history in the Netherlands. This country of about 16.5 million people has been using a version of WSF for all its primary schools (serving children from age 4 to 12) for 25 years. In this article we describe and evaluate the Dutch system…

School-community interactions facilitate connections between schools and their local surroundings; however, these relationships are subject not only to local political, economic, and social influences but also to broader political and institutional forces. Educational administrators' decisions about programming and partnering can be considered in…

This paper documents the initial process by which a San Diego middle school, located in a low-income and predominantly Hispanic neighborhood and repeatedly failing to meet No Child Left Behind provisions, restructured into an academically rigorous, detracked charter school. The discussion of the political experience and working relationships…

In this study, faculty at institutions of higher education in Southern California were surveyed to determine the ways they interpret the effects of globalization dynamics upon their various teaching and research activities. Faculty in the state's three higher education tiers spoke positively about the intellectual benefits to be gained by exposure…

This paper provides a co-director's and co-author's review of and commentary on research carried out with Maurice Galton over the past decade. Its principal focus is the burden that recent education policies and ascent of a deleterious culture of performativity have inflicted on teachers' professional and domestic lives. It reports on four studies…

This article examines the relations between two contrasting education phenomena that occur generally and that have come to light in the geographic location where the author teaches and works. This first phenomenon is the proliferation of interest in issues of diversity and equity through education policies, theories, practices, and initiatives.…

In keeping with international guidelines and to meet the target of Education for All (EFA) by 2015, the Cambodian government, with assistance from non-government and aid organisations, has instituted several initiatives towards including children with disabilities in the educational mainstream. This paper examines these efforts within the context…

This article considers the impact of recent political decisions on the provision of teacher education and the continuing development of teachers in England. It tracks how successive governments have changed the requirements necessary to become a teacher as circumstances have changed in the country and considers the impact of these changes on…

Using a theoretical lens of democratic education, this study critically analyzes pilot schools in the Boston Public School system, a school model gaining influence and imitation around the United States. Building on theories regarding the role of democracy in schools, and especially workplace democracy, this article juxtaposes these conceptions of…

Modern business discourse suggests that a key bulwark against market fluctuation and the threat of failure is for organizations to become "agile'", a more dynamic and proactive position than that previously afforded by mere "flexibility". The same idea is also directed at the personal level, it being argued that the…

Congress's role in defining and promoting equality of educational opportunity has evolved over the past 55 years since "Brown v. Board of Education." Most recently, all three branches of the federal government have focused more on equality of educational opportunity for "individual" students rather than for protected classes.…

In early 2009, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal government's nearly $800 billion stimulus legislation. According to key members of Congress and the Obama administration, the education portions of the law, totaling about $100 billion, were designed both to…

This paper explores the notions of globalization as embodied in Japanese educational reforms during the 1980s and 1990s. Modern institutional discourses of educational reform in Japan have shifted over time and all of these reform movements have been constructed by particular social and historical trajectories. Generally speaking, it has been…

Privatization is one of the main global trends in higher education. Aspects of privatization include the development and expansion of private institutions, increased reliance of public institutions on private funding, and the operation of the institutions in a businesslike manner. The rapid spread of privatization in higher education systems of…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Senate Committee Passes Education Appropriations Bill; (2) Upside Down: New Alliance Brief Says Federal Education…