Examines two books, "The Color of School Reform: Race, Politics, and the Challenge of Urban Education" and "Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore," both of which apply urban regime theory to a new policy arena, reconsider the role of business in local school politics, bring politics into institutionalist analysis of…

Recommends that professional development should address five aspects of school capacity: teacher knowledge, skills, and dispositions; professional community; program coherence; technical resources; and principal leadership. Research on nine urban elementary schools nationwide found considerable variation in schools' use of professional development…

Examines different cultural understandings of the individual that underlie Japanese and U.S. educational practices. Reviews existing literature on early education and the self in Japan and suggests the need for a distinction between individualism and individuality, with Japanese education tending toward a focus on individuality and U.S. education…

Examines ideological sources of the conflict over students' rights, discussing how religious orthodoxy and liberal proceduralism translate themselves into antagonistic education policy prescriptions. Explores issues of students' rights and the concomitant demise of "in loco parentis," assessing the limits of liberalism's ability to mount a…

Illustrates major arguments for narrowing the source of teaching expertise to considerations built on teacher-based knowledge and experience, examining sociopolitical concerns that attend the arguments. Introduces a case for widening the pale of consideration, offering an alternative way to think about the sources of teaching expertise that…

Investigated how high school students in Papua New Guinea responded to rising educational credentialism and unemployment by drawing on elements of their traditional egalitarian village identity to make moral judgements about appropriate selves and futures. Interview and observation data indicated that students referred to specific western…

Investigates differential effects of small classes on academic achievement among disadvantaged elementary students using data from Tennessee's Student Achievement Ratio Project. While positive effects of small classes are evident on both reading and mathematics achievement, there is no evidence of differential effects for low socioeconomic status…

Examines the homework reform movement, which emerged in the early 1900s on the margins of progressive education and achieved its greatest influence on educational thought and practice just after World War II. Describes the pre-World War II origins, the immediate postwar years, the redefining of rationale and content, and individualization, time…

Examines one high school's success in getting African American students to take advanced mathematics courses. Evaluation of the school site, staff interviews, and school documents highlight characteristics of the mathematics department that influenced student success: a rigorous curriculum, active commitment to students, and standards-based…

Reviews David Reynolds'"There Goes the Neighborhood," which examined school consolidation and community based schooling and highlighted Delaware County, Iowa, around 1910-30. Reynolds characterizes school consolidation as expressing the enduring modern tension between what is good for a community and what is good for society. (Contains…

Reviews Herbert Kliebard's book, "Schooled to Work," which traces the evolution of the idea that public education should help train youth for jobs and assesses the impact of this idea on the organization of school curriculum. Kliebard's book discusses how the emphasis on increasing global competitiveness, reducing social waste and economic…

Reviews the book by John Aubrey Douglass, "The California Idea and American Higher Education," suggesting that it presents a masterful, highly informative, encyclopedic modern history of California's public higher education as it looks at the state government's work toward sponsorship of higher education over the years. (SM)

Distance learning theory and research holds that interaction is an essential characteristic of successful distance learning courses. However, the lack of definition as to what constitutes observable, measurable interactive qualities in distance learning courses has prevented transfer from theory and research to design practices and has hindered…

The authors employed multiple data-collection procedures to determine which of four personal (non-subject-matter-specific) discussion folders would be used most frequently by online learners in two online courses, and which would be rated more favorably and considered more effective than other folders. The folders were studied for the way in which…

A survey of online students at the New York Institute of Technology was conducted to determine satisfaction with existing online student services and to find out what types of services would be desirable in the future. Although the online students were generally satisfied with many of the student services they were receiving, there was room for…