There are good reasons to press President Obama and his education advisors right now to both rethink the direction of educational reform as well as to reignite the national conversation regarding school change. A second-term president faces a moment where it's natural to analyze past practices and decide to either "stay the course or to…

This article presents the author's review of three books: (1) "The irregular school: exclusion, schooling and inclusive education," by Roger Slee; (2) "Confronting obstacles to inclusion: international responses to developing inclusive education," edited by Richard Rose; and (3) ""Hanging in with the kids" in tough times: engagement in contexts of…

The author traces the history of the campaign to stop Islington Green School being closed and turned into an academy specialising in business and financial services. Although the campaign, after a number of successes now looks as if it might fail in its immediate objective, the author argues that the battle was still worth fighting because of the…

Participating in the Save Our School march was an inspiring event, the reverberating impact from which will be long-lasting. The march, which was endorsed by the Executive Board of Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI), was an effort to call awareness to the struggles that public education faces in the United States. The guiding…

Three papers are included herein: (1) Pernicious Politicization in Academe (Luann Wright); (2) Victims of the One-Sided Campus (Mike Ratliff); and (3) Advocacy in the College Classroom (Anne D. Neal). Each paper was delivered on April 22, 2006 at a California Association of Scholars conference at the Annenberg School on the campus of the…

Advocates for education reform are becoming increasingly frustrated with the pace of progress in school districts across the United States, especially those in urban communities. Low student achievement appears to be a fact of life in most of these districts, particularly among poor students and students of color. Results of the National…

There has been much hoopla surrounding the notion that charter schools may be a viable option for urban youth. However, the existing information on this issue may be easily dissimulated considering less sloganeering about charter school theories and more research on how charter schools enhance the academic experience of the students they serve are…

The aim of this paper is to critique the dichotomy between the legal regulation of disability discrimination in Australia, particularly in the State of New South Wales, and inclusion policy as espoused by public education authorities. It is argued that the law and inclusion policy are aiming at different outcomes. As a result, through legal…

In this article, the author discusses the contradictory goals of several groups and individuals that are waging war against social studies and the historians' attitudes in response to this war. He stresses that he is not claiming that these "strange bedfellows," as he comes to call them, that are attacking social studies are working in…

A collection of essays presents the updated positions of nine critics of the community college who from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s participated in a debate with two-year college proponents over many of the fundamental assumptions of the community college movement. The volume contains: (1) "From Mass to Class in Higher Education," by…