With the failure of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to adopt the governor's education reform package, the time is opportune to review the major problems with education in Pennsylvania and some actions that would relieve these problems. The main symptom of education problems, in Pennsylvania as in the nation as a whole, is weak academic…

This book argues that school-based management appears to be primarily concerned with dismantling centralized education systems (which have traditionally supported the work of teachers, students, and parents) and replacing them with a free-market ideology of competition and choice. School-based management separates elite policy makers and interest…

The four papers in this annual volume on the history of higher education cover some of the changes that evolved over the years in various U.S. institutions. The first paper is: "The Harvard Tutors: The Beginning of an Academic Profession, 1690-1825" (John D. Burton), which discusses the shift from Harvard's original tutorship model to…

This study explored the multiple effects of "professionalization" discourse on the creation of a new early childhood teacher certification program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study explored two questions: How is the influence of professional ideology on the construction of the program linked to university prestige and…

In Johnson City, New York, the schools have sustained positive, meaningful educational change since 1964. The Johnson City schools have also given birth to the national movement of Outcome-Based Education (OBE). This book provides a cultural history of the relationship between community and school in school reform. The book describes the…

Women describe their personal journeys to top positions of leadership in higher education in the 20 essays collected in this book. Ten American and 10 British college and university heads tell their unique stories about passing through the "glass ceiling" that limits the career leadership opportunities for women in academe. Essays…

This is an interpretive summary of information from a multiple case study of 11 school districts in California, Arizona, and Nevada conducted in the spring and fall of 1992 as part of a larger set of strategies to work on solutions to the challenges facing schools in metropolitan areas of the Pacific Southwest. Rather than presenting a set of…

This book examines the relationship between teachers (facilitators) and students who are themselves education professionals and who are participating in professional development courses. The methodology, which is based on a combination of interaction and reflection, is outlined in Chapter 1. Examined in Chapter 2 are the roles of the didactic,…

This paper shows how gender, science, and assessment are all built on a fundamental set of dualistic concepts associated with masculine power and privilege. It also shows that a manageable change to curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices, moving from the conventional masculine paradigm of "quality" practice to a reconstructed…

This study examined a new measure of ecological dissonance (ED), whether different degrees of ED existed within levels of a university's power hierarchy, the relationship between ED and worker morale as a function of administrative power levels, and ED theory. Ninety-four faculty members at Mississippi State University completed the Index of Power…

This study examined the relationship between leader power and the amount of conflict with teachers' perceptions of their empowerment. Drawing from the literature, the study identified underlying dimensions of empowerment as teachers' involvement in decision making, and teacher impact, status, autonomy, opportunities for professional development,…

This book points to the need to attend to ever-present inequalities of education in the light of new political correctness, technology, and curricula. Following the introduction, chapter 1 offers a review of neoconservative, liberal humanist, and radical theories of education. Chapter 2 suggests that one way to rethink and restructure the nature…

In Australia the Federal Government plays a dominant role in higher education funding. Changes to the role and structure of the higher education system in 1988 aligned the universities more closely with national economic goals and sent the message to institutions that they were expected to adopt a more managerial mode of operation in order to…

Inherent, interrelated, and structural biases against excellence in education that operate at the university and school levels in the American educational system are discussed in this paper. Structural constraints of the American secondary system include universal secondary education, comprehensive school organization, downward coupling, local…

Although the current educational restructuring movement in the United States may be designed to improve schooling, it is also a political reform designed to shift the locus of authority over allocation of this service. This political theme is developed in the context of the historical shift from decentralized to centralized delivery of urban…