In this article the authors accept as a given the National Education Technology Plan's vision of a transformed education system powered by technology such that learners receive personalized and engaging learning experiences, and where assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity are redefined. The article analyzes this vision of a…

"Conversations With Principals: Issues, Values, and Politics," is a unique compilation of interviews with principals at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. This book allows the readers the unusual opportunity to experience the inner voice of principals as they discuss the many decisions they make and the multitude of people they must…

This book looks at the way corporate cultures is encroaching on children's lives. It explores three myths prevalent in society: (1) that the triumph of democracy is equal to the triumph of the market; (2) that children are unaffected by power and politics; and (3) that teaching and learning are no longer linked to improving the world. The book…

This article is posthumously published as the late Joan Simon's most recent contribution to ongoing debates in historiography of education. Joan remained an active writer and a contributor to this journal and submitted the present article only months before her death, with characteristic determination to engage in historiographical debate, and to…

This paper is based on a keynote speech delivered to the AUA Annual Conference, Belfast, April 2006. It discusses the concept of organisational development as it applies to universities, where internally developed approaches applying some of the core principles of standard frameworks are the norm. The author discusses several organisational…

This critical policy examination of the economistic discourses that control Texas's accountability reforms explores how over the last three decades Texas business elite utilized the policy process, power relationships, and educational value conflicts that promote accountability as the paradigm for education reform. Attention on "who gets…

Policy makers and advocates have a variety of tools from which to choose when designing childcare policy. Policy design choices, such as whether to provide childcare assistance through a new government program or via a voucher for use in the private market, are in fact social, political, moral, and value-laden choices that shape the nature of…

For most of the past decade, the lobbying juggernaut of the career-college sector and its political patrons have fought a battle on Capitol Hill to federalize institutional decisions about transfers of credits. They have accused traditional colleges of refusing to award academic credit for what they claim is their institutions' equivalent course…

Political trust is an important determinant of individual political behavior and government effectiveness and an indication of the health of civil society. Declining trust among Americans is well documented. Surveys of Latino immigrants indicate that they are also cynical about government, but it is not clear whether this distrust takes the same…

Issues of school choice have become prominent in public discussion, particularly in the last decade since limits on the establishment of new schools were reduced by the Federal Government with a resultant increase in possible choices for families. Alongside issues of choice are the issues that arise when a change of school choice is necessary.…

This article examines how particular dynamics of globalization, including pressures to restructure economies for informational labor, shape and are shaped by processes of public schooling and the development of diverse literacies (understood here as the control of certain forms of life). More specifically, this article analyzes how, in an era of…

This essay examines the relationships between homosexuality and sex education in New Zealand during the 1970s. It argues that reading sex education debates and resources provides a useful way of exploring connections between the ontologies and politics of sexuality at that time. In particular, the advent of social movements concerned with sexual…

The profile, status and funding of leadership development has risen dramatically both in the UK and internationally over the last decade. In England this has been denoted by the rise of national programmes of leadership development and the creation of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). Although the original inception of such…

As the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act comes up for reauthorization in Congress this year, everyone is taking sides. The detractors believe the law should be called "No School Left Standing" and fear that its real intent is to destroy public education. The supporters believe that NCLB has banished mediocrity and exposed the dirty little…

This article puts forth 2 competing notions of the American Dream, 1 radical and 1 conservative (both put forth by Thomas Jefferson), as the basis for 2 competing public philosophies of American democracy and education. This article traces out the ecology of inequality that has determined the context of these 2 competing public philosophies,…