One way that people learn to recognize themselves as members of a nation-state is by participating in the ritual of a national census. In the United States acquaintance with such enumerations is cultivated during childhood by the federal government's "Census in Schools" (CIS) program, which distributes a variety of educational materials…

This paper presents a case study of the origins, politics, and preliminary outcomes of Virginia's "restructured" relationship between public colleges and universities and the Commonwealth. The initially proposed "charter" status for the state's three historically important universities became the vehicle for a reform that…

In every assistant professor there seems to lurk a Karate Kid seeking a Mr. Miyagi who will train his acolyte to be a skilled warrior in the art of research, teaching, and service and impart pithy life lessons along the way. Such singular folks exist. But it's far more likely that one will find several mentors who, while not well-versed in all…

Passing property tax issues is an increasing challenge for many school districts. This article examines 21 school levy strategies identified through a literature review associated with successful school levy campaigns. These strategies were then used as a framework to evaluate one district's attempts to pass a school bond levy. Whereas the study…

The global economic crisis has accelerated the fear that the United States' international power is fading. It has also made clear the need for American higher education to engage more deeply with the rest of the world, not run from it. That was the consensus among a group of presidents and provosts who met in New York this month as part of…

The deepening financial crisis that is now affecting markets and people around the globe gives new context to what the nation is facing. Americans cannot think of business as usual in any sector of public or private life, including higher education. President-elect Barack Obama will have very little financial latitude and enormous immediate…

As the research interests and the focus of traditional earth scientists are transformed, so too must education in earth system science at colleges and universities across the country change. The required change involves not only the methods used to teach this new science, but also the essential place of the earth sciences in the panoply of…

Teacher education in the USA lives in a policy shadow world that is jumbled and unfocused because decision-makers do not see teacher education as a public good in and of itself. Rather, it is viewed as an instrument to achieve other, more important, policy goals. Consequently, teacher education policy tends to be parsed across fields and levels of…

White privilege analysis has been influential in philosophy of education. I offer some mild criticisms of this largely salutary direction--its inadequate exploration of its own normative foundations, and failure to distinguish between "spared injustice", "unjust enrichment" and "non-injustice-related" privileges; its inadequate exploration of the…

In this article, I describe how I made use of Foucault theoretically and methodologically in a study of five specific parrhesiastic scholars. Such scholars challenge hegemony in educational policies and practices, and advocate for educational reform and societal structures that move toward equity instead of marginalization. The article begins by…

The rich diversity of suburban Washington DC's ethnic and linguistic communities flourish side by side with some of the most powerful homogenizing forces in the United States: National Bureau of Standards, National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Education. This concern on accommodating centralized standards--not…

This paper deals with the latest structural changes in the Danish vocational education and training system (VET), a system so far characterised by a principle of alternating between practical training and theoretical instruction. Structural changes can be described as a shift of paradigm, which might be seen as a regression compared to the Danish…

In 1925, A.J. Balfour, first Earl Balfour and author of the famous "Balfour Declaration", attended the inauguration of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His education and experience of foreign policy equipped him to take a prominent role. However, the conditions of strife-torn Palestine weighed heavily upon him, and raised wider…

In this paper I explore connections between women, art education and spatial relations drawing on the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of "machinic assemblage" as a useful analytical tool for making sense of the heterogeneity and meshwork of life narratives and their social milieus. In focusing on Mary Bradish Titcomb, a fin-de-siecle Bostonian woman…

In this article, the author profiles Paul D. Houston, an executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), who became one of the few major education leaders to publicly reject the new No Child Left Behind bill, even as it became federal law. The AASA has never before seen the likes of an executive like Houston, a…