The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct research, develop strategies, create materials and evaluate the potential of marketing and communications programs to sustain and increase funding for U.S. public libraries. The quantitative study targeted two audiences: residents in…

Replacing boards of education conceived during the Progressive Era with mayoral control has been a popular reform strategy in urban districts such as Boston, Chicago, and New York City. A thorough review of the extant research, however, shows little evidence regarding its impact on governance, management, school organization, or teaching and…

This dissertation evaluates the impact of elementary school policies on child health behaviors and obesity in the United States. Two chapters address nutrition policies, two chapters address physical activity policies, and a final chapter estimates the health care cost savings associated with a decline in childhood obesity prevalence. The use of…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns. Rules and auditing standards are intended to tame this kind of short-sighted behavior in the private sector. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the hope that public officials will not be…

Performance funding in higher education ties state funding directly to institutional performance on specific indicators, such as rates of retention, graduation, and job placement. One of the great puzzles about performance funding is that it has been both popular and unstable. Between 1979 and 2007, 26 states enacted it, but 14 of those states…

When it became clear that existing literacy efforts would not be enough to enable some countries to reach Education for All (EFA) Goal 4 (a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy), UNESCO launched the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE, 2006-2015). 35 countries with literacy rates below 50 percent and/or a population of more…

Administrator perspectives regarding current and potential increased participation in post-secondary educational opportunities by Michigan high school students were explored in this descriptive quantitative study. Targeted concerns included current institutional levels of involvement, personal knowledge concerning program rules and regulations,…

The goal of this study is to identify those factors contributing to special education teacher (SET) turnover that can be directly amendable to intervention by the improved policy and practice at school sites. This study examines the turnover behavior of SETs by including variables clustered as teacher demographics, employment factors, and teacher…

The use of computers in the classroom could allow both educators and learners to achieve new capabilities. There are underlying factors, however, that are obstructing the adoption rate of computer use for instructional purposes in schools. This research focused on these problems with a view to determining which critical success factors promote a…

This study explored the perceptions of 395 participants (students, teachers, and education officers) in Ghana on the role of the computer and the teacher in promoting the first five principles of instruction for quality teaching and learning. To achieve the intention of the study, five point Likert-type scales based on the first five principles of…

This study examines changes at a large teacher education college in Israel and considers how teacher educators perceive these changes. The research tools included protocols documenting formal meetings of college decision makers, questionnaires distributed among the college teaching faculty, analyzed quantitatively, and in-depth narrative…

Using evaluation to improve performance has become a priority for Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) policy makers and practitioners in the field of public information/communication and education about development. This Policy Brief is an introduction to evaluation, with proposals on how official donors and civil society…

Business schools must prepare students to face the world and yet maintain strong ethical convictions. The question of ethics in the business environment is not exclusive to the United States. Ethical business behavior is a multinational issue, and all business schools world-wide must deal with this issue. However, cultural differences often define…

In the early twentieth century, a new alliance formed between university-based scholars who dedicated themselves to the scientific study of education and public school officials. This alliance centered on the proposition that applied research could advance the professionalization of schooling and become a prestigious academic specialty in its own…

Male and female, black and white political interviewees (M. Albright, B. Clinton, H. Clinton, B. Obama, C. Powell, and C. Rice) of Larry King on CNN TV are used to ascertain whether ethnicity and gender affect the way politicians actually speak. Qualitative comparisons are made of Obama's hesitations and rate with and without a threatening…