Coggshall, Jane; Laine, Sabrina; Lasagna, Molly (2009). Toward the Structural Transformation of Schools: Innovations in Staffing. Learning Point Associates The troubled economy is driving school organizations to become more efficient and driving the business community to demand that schools produce graduates with different sets of skills. States are finally uniting around common student learning standards as the student population grows more diverse. And the new administration is pouring an unprecedented amount of money into education to support thoughtful innovation. To thrive, not just survive, in this new age, the very heart of schools–instruction–must undergo transformation. To harness the opportunities for large-scale instructional reform that these disruptions bring, it is the position of Learning Point Associates that states should lead the structural transformation of schooling, beginning with revolutionizing how they think about, prepare, license, deploy, and support educators. Many states have gotten a head start on improving the quality of instruction in America's schools by working to build a holistic system of educator… [PDF]

(2009). Legislative Agenda for the 111th Congress, 2009-2010. Arc of the United States For many decades, the six national disability advocacy organizations that endorse the legislative agenda contained in this document have recognized the vital role the federal government plays in the everyday lives of children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families. From civil rights protections to community housing, from special education to Social Security benefits, from job training to basic health care, from transportation to long term supports and services and more, the federal government spends billions of dollars, both directly and in partnership with state government, on people with developmental disabilities. These programs are funded though entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Medicare and discretionary programs such as vocational rehabilitation, HUD housing, and education. Following an Introduction, the publication includes both fiscal policy and programmatic agenda. The partnering organizations call on Congress to: (1) Address the unmet needs… [PDF]

Gordon, Mary; Letchford, Donna (2009). Program Integrity, Controlled Growth Spell Success for Roots of Empathy. Education Canada, v49 n5 spec iss p52-54, 56. Childhood is a universal aspect of the human condition. Yet the landscape of childhood is changing rapidly. On playgrounds young children carry cell phones, and in classrooms children are more sophisticated in their use of computers and digital media than the adults in their lives. Most young adolescents are prolific communicators via text and instant message. They assemble rich and complex interrelationships with peers through social networking. This changing landscape is what author and innovation theorist Clayton Christensen is alerting people to with his theory of disruptive innovation applied to the field of education. A disruptive innovation is one that improves or supplants a product or service in ways the market does not expect. Applying this idea to education, Christensen suggests that by 2019 half of class time in all schools will involve children doing customized learning on computers. It is certainly a possibility that children will be taught differently a decade from now… [Direct]

(2001). Organizational Enhancement. Symposium 30. [AHRD Conference, 2001]. This document contains four papers on organizational enhancement and human resource development (HRD). "Motivation to Improve Work through Learning in Human Resource Development" (Sharon S. Naquin, Elwood F. Holton III) argues that HRD's traditional conceptualization of motivation should be expanded to incorporate motivation to use learning to improve performance. "Improving Performance through HRD: Towards a Multi Level Model" (A.A.M. [Ida] Wognum) reports on a Dutch study that identified the following five factors as important to HRD effectiveness: strategic alignment; the problem serving as the starting point for HRD; the company HRD climate; the position of the HRD department; and the form of HRD interventions. "Exploring Organization Commitment in a Non-Profit Service Organization" (Constantine Kontoghiorghes, Nancy Bryant) discusses a study that identified the following four key predictors of employee commitment: company satisfaction; the extent… [PDF]

(2006). Recess for Elementary School Students. Position Statement. National Association for Sport and Physical Education It is the position of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) that all elementary school children should be provided with at least one daily period of recess of at least 20 minutes in length. Recess is an essential component of a comprehensive school physical activity program and of the total education experience for elementary school students. Various organizations including the United States Department of Health and Human Services and the United States Department of Education (USDHHS & USDE, 2000), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 1997), National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1998), and American Association for the Child's Right to Play (IPA/USA, n.d.) support school recess as an integral component of a child's physical, social, and academic development. This paper presents the recommendations of NASPE on recess implementation…. [PDF]

(1991). Choose Life! Unborn Children and the Right to Life. Intermediate Level: Grades 5-6. This curriculum is designed to assist Catholic school teachers and parish catechists in their efforts to foster a pro-life attitude in students in grades 5 and 6. Following an introduction is the curriculum, which features six lessons. These are: (1) The miracle of life around us; (2) Respect for all life; (3) The miracle of human life; (4) Abortion and the facts; (5) Abortion and the right to life; and (6) Choose life. Student handouts are included in the lessons, and a series of fetal development visuals are appended. (DB)…

Colvin, Jan; Lanigan, Jane (2005). Ethical Issues and Best Practice Considerations for Internet Research. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, v97 n3 p34-39 Sep. With rapidly increasing public use of the Internet and advances in Web technologies, family and consumer sciences researchers have the opportunity to conduct Internet-based research. However, online research raises critical ethical issues concerning human subjects that have an impact on research practices. This article provides a review of the literature on Internet research ethics and reviews the application of ethical principles for conducting online studies. Best practice considerations are offered to protect the confidentiality and rights of participants in Internet research and to ensure that the field remains viable for future research….

Mansson, Niclas; Safstrom, Carl Anders (2004). The Limits of Socialisation. Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education, v35 n3 p353-364 Sep. The article deals with the question of living with others, one of the most significant relationships of human life, and challenge the common understanding of the origins of living with others, where a human being is not just becoming a social but also a moral being through social institutions of societies. This common understanding of a social relationship, fostered and nurtured by a given society, places the responsibility for the possibility of living with others on the other. Drawing on the work from the sociologists Zygmunt Bauman and George Simmel and the philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Knud Logstrup we argue that the possibility of living with others is based on the rights of the other rather than of the rights to determine whom the other is. By focusing on the relation between the individual and the society on the one hand, and the connections between being moral and being social on the other hand, we suggest that the process of socialisation is devastating not only for… [Direct]

Schroyer-Portillo, Janet (1984). Civil Rights in Crisis: The Reagan Administration's Reforms. This paper identifies major changes in the area of civil rights which have been instituted during President Reagan's term in office and discusses their implications for Hispanics. Section I briefly outlines central themes of the Administration's attitude towards civil rights. Questions about their negative impact on Hispanics are raised. The next six sections discuss particular developments within a different Federal department or commission. Subjects are as follows: in section II, the Department of Justice (agency leadership, affirmative action, voting rights, fair housing, Federal grant recipient compliance, tax-exempt status for schools, and school desegregation); in section III, the Department of Education (use of the intent test, bilingual education, education block grants, and education for the handicapped); in section IV, the Department of Health and Human Services (increased voluntary compliance and block grants); in section V, the Department of Labor; in section VI, the…

Sachdeva, J. L., Ed.; Saxena, J. C., Ed. (1986). Role of Adult Education and Mass Media for Civic Education. Report of the Asian Pacific Seminar (New Delhi, India, September 10-14, 1985). This publication contains six presentations from a seminar that stressed that the problem of adult education should be viewed from the angle of human resource development and all necessary interdepartmental linkages should be developed. The keynote address, "Major Challenges and Prospects of Adult Education for the Year 2000" (T. M. Sakya), is followed by a list of seminar conclusions and recommendations. The six presentations are "Adult Education for the Year 2000: Challenges and Prospects" (S. C. Dutta); "Adult Education for the Year 2000: Challenges and Prospects" (Sunthorn Sunanchai); "Role of Adult Education for Promoting Civic Rights and Responsibilities" (Satyen Maitra); "Role of Mass Media in Adult and Civic Education: Some Observations" (J. S. Yadava); "Electronic Media for Adult Education" (B. B. Mohanty); and "Role of Mass Media for Adult Education in India: A Status Paper" (S. K. Tuteja). Seven group…

Greenfield, Suzanne; Temkin, Deborah (2019). Youth Bullying Prevention in the District of Columbia: School Year 2017-18 Report. Publication 2019-17. Child Trends Strong anti-bullying policies are foundational to effective bullying prevention. The Youth Bullying Prevention Act of 2012 (YBPA; DC Law L19-167) is among the most comprehensive bullying prevention policies across the United States and its territories. The law and its implementing regulations require all schools and youth-serving agencies (including, but not limited to, government agencies, libraries, nonprofits, and community centers) to adopt comprehensive anti-bullying policies, implement thorough reporting and investigation procedures, provide training for staff, and maintain and report incident data. The law further requires the Mayor to provide, on a biennial basis, a report to Council regarding the current implementation of the Act and a summary of the status of bullying in the District of Columbia. This report serves to fulfill this requirement for school year (SY) 2017-2018. Like its previous iterations, this report provides a detailed summary of each educational… [PDF]

Arafeh, Sousan; Lenhart, Amanda; Smith, Aaron (2008). Writing, Technology and Teens. Pew Internet & American Life Project Teenagers' lives are filled with writing. All teens write for school, and 93% of teens say they write for their own pleasure. Most notably, the vast majority of teens have eagerly embraced written communication with their peers as they share messages on their social network pages, in emails and instant messages online, and through fast-paced thumb choreography on their cell phones. This raises a major question: What, if anything, connects the formal writing teens do and the informal e-communication they exchange on digital screens? A considerable number of educators and children's advocates worry that James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, was right when he recently suggested that young Americans' electronic communication might be damaging \the basic unit of human thought–the sentence.\ They are concerned that the quality of writing by young Americans is being degraded by their electronic communication, with its carefree spelling, lax punctuation and grammar, and its acronym… [PDF]

Glenn, David (2008). Security and Paperwork Keep Prison Researchers on The Outside. Chronicle of Higher Education, v54 n29 pA13 Mar. The American prison apparatus is larger today than ever before. The Pew Center on the States reported in February 2008 that more than one in 100 American adults live behind bars. However, few are scrutinizing the everyday experiences of the 2.3 million people in American prisons and jails. Scholars who want to do ethnographic fieldwork in prisons face a long row of hurdles, including suspicious wardens and human-subjects committees that can take many months to approve applications. In interviews, prison scholars offered thoughts about how to balance public need for information about prisons with the protection of prisoners' safety and dignity. Would-be prison researchers today must simultaneously apply to a state or federal department of corrections and also to their own university's institutional review board. The process can take a year or more, and even then, in some states, local prison wardens have the right to veto the permission granted by the state bureaucracy. A former… [Direct]

Rodionov, S. N.; Shevtsov, R. P. (2008). On Religious Subjects in School Education. Russian Education and Society, v50 n10 p6-15 Oct. These days, problems of relations between the church and the schools are at the focus of attention of sociologists. In present-day Russia, religion, particularly the Orthodox religion, is acknowledged to have the right to contribute to the formation of the Russian state and culture. According to the findings of recent sociological surveys, many Russians see the religious heritage as a vital component of the national culture, as a characteristic of spirituality and morality in combination with universal human values such as love, peace, and justice. In 2003, the demand for traditional moral, ethical, and spiritual values, and their increasing role in the upbringing of the rising generation, prompted the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to publish a number of documents that recommended the introduction of subjects relating to religious themes in the schools. The authors carried out a pilot survey in February 2007 to determine the "opinions of teachers in the primary… [Direct]

(1988). Biology, Medicine, and the Bill of Rights. Special Report. The rapid progress in the biological sciences has resulted in many social, ethical, and legal issues. In medical practice, public health programs, research laboratories, law enforcement, insurance, the patenting process, agriculture, genetic counseling, and other fields, legal controversies and public policy debates have developed. Some of these issues entail challenges to traditional interpretations of constitutional principles. This report deals with the implications of new developments in biological sciences as they relate to the freedoms and protections embedded in the Bill of Rights. The chapters are: (1) \Biology and the Constitution\; (2) \Personal Rights and Technological Might\; (3) \The New Biology\; (4) \Human Genetics and the Constitution\; (5) \Public Health Techniques and Technologies\; and (6) \Medical Interventions: The Beginning and End of Life.\ The appendix contains a list of the Office of Technology (OTA) reviewers, contractors, workshop participants, and… [PDF]

Claycomb, Mary (1978). Brain Research and Learning. Current research on brain activity has many implications for educators. The triune brain concept and the left and right hemisphere concepts are among the many complex theories evolving from experimentation and observation. The triune brain concept suggests that the human forebrain has expanded while retaining three structurally unique formations that reflect early ancestral relationships to reptiles, early mammals, and recent mammals. The left and right hemisphere and division of labor theories attribute functions to specific regions of the brain. These theories lead to the conclusion that educators must be concerned with educating all areas of the brain, since all of the areas interact. The research suggests that a basic education must include informational and processing skills as well as creative behaviors and artistic activities. Educational issues such as learning disabilities, genetic and biological differences, and instructional designs have already been in influenced by… [PDF]

(1977). Wellesley College Case Study for the Sloan Commission on Government and Higher Education. The impact of government legislation and regulation on Wellesley College in Massachusetts is analyzed. The impact of federal aid on the economics of the college is considered in terms of capital resources and operating resources. The analysis also considers the effects of government legislation and regulation on capital costs, first-time implementation costs, and continuing operating expenses. The influence of government programs on the character and the philosophy of the college is also considered. Two highly visible areas of college/government relations are student financial aid and civil rights. Civil rights issues include: affirmative action and minority employment, sex discrimination, the Buckley Amendment (student records), age discrimination, and research on human subjects. Other legislation and regulations affecting higher education concern copyrights, the Higher Education General Information Survey, occupational safety and health, tax reform, gifts of stock to colleges, the…

Dauito, Kathleen; Klein, Susan S. (1982). What's Left of Federal Funding for Sex Equity in Education?. This overview of funding available for women's equity from federal sources reflects the decreasing governmental support for equal education programs. Major attention is given to federal support of research and development activities, and suggestions are offered on general strategies for obtaining such funds related to sex equity in education. Some federal funding sources are described, including the Women's Education Equity Act Program, Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, Vocational Education Act Programs, the National Institute of Education, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, the Office for Civil Rights, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, and ACTION, to name a few. These materials provide an agency overview, its relevance to sex equity, potential applicants, and publications and agency contacts. Programs both within and outside of the U.S. Department of Education are included. Public funding…

LaFromboise, Teresa Davis (1982). Assertion Training With American Indians: Cultural/Behavioral Issues for Trainers. Assertiveness training, a current preferred method of training appropriate communication skills, strives to teach a behavior which enables a person to act in his/her own interests, to express honest feelings comfortably, or to exercise one's own rights without denying the rights of others. Assertion training could be envisioned as an intervention strategy for Indians to create conditions for a new era in which their future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions in pursuit of entitlement to services rather than their need for services. Designed to aid educators, human development specialists, and mental health professionals in developing assertion training programs with American Indian people, the manual discusses assertive behavior; elements of Indian culture and Indian thinking; a selected assertion training model composed of instruction, modeling, behavior rehearsal and feedback; application of assertion training to express Indian rights and responsibilities; aspects of… [PDF]

Winzenz, Marilyn (1977). Reading Comprehension and Right/Left Brain Thinking. Extensive research has proven that the functions of the two hemispheres of the brain tend to be qualitatively different. The left hemisphere, which for most people is dominant, is the major controller of speech, reading, and writing; it is the hemisphere toward which education traditionally has been directed. The right hemisphere excels in nonverbal skills. It also appears to be responsible for providing the intuitive, imaginative, creative side of human personality. It is this hemisphere that many educators claim has been neglected in the schools. The challenge for the teacher of reading is to draw upon both modes of knowing to enhance comprehension. Teachers need to learn how to encourage expression of the nondominant and creative right hemisphere to facilitate the active, problem-solving left hemisphere; to ignore the function of the right hemisphere is to teach only half the child. Numerous teaching/learning activities could effectively be used to draw upon both brain sides;…

Ruxton, Sandy (1998). Implementing Children's Rights: What Can the UK Learn from International Experience?. The welfare and treatment of children is a key test of society's commitment to human and social development. This report details a study of the implementation of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the United Kingdom (UK) and contrasts the U.K. approach with those adopted in other states, focusing on those at comparable stages of economic, social, and political development. Methods used in the study included a literature review of appropriate documents, such as summaries of U.N. Committee hearings and state party reports; questionnaires completed by staff of nongovernmental agencies and government officials; and follow-up telephone interviews. The report outlines arguments for the promotion of children's rights, explains the significance of the U.N. Convention, and identifies how the Convention can be used as a tool for implementing children's rights. The bulk of the report compares the approaches to reporting adopted in other countries and the measures… [PDF]

Easton, Stanley E. (1977). Educational Outcomes of Social Studies Programs in Rural Schools. Performance of rural 13-year-olds on the 1971-1972 social studies assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were reviewed in terms of three major exercise themes. Performance on skill exercises revealed rural strengths in source selection and human affairs insights, but weaknesses in reading maps and graphs. Fewer than 30% determined the social message behind selected songs. Results of knowledge exercises revealed that rural students know much about local issues, and the distribution of federal, state, and local power. Fifty percent comprehended foreign political systems, but only about 22% demonstrated knowledge of world affairs or geography. Only 16% understood the U.S. election process. Attitudinal exercises showed about 90% supporting the right to choose one's own religion and 57% felt that a non-believer in God had the right to hold public office. Although 94% wanted to improve conditions in other poor neighborhoods, only 30% felt they knew how. Only… [PDF]

DeStefano, Joseph (2002). Find, Deploy, Support, and Keep the Best Teachers and School Leaders. This paper describes the vital role that human-resources management plays as a contributing factor to excellent schools and student learning. Nationwide, it is the norm for human-resources practices to be mismanaged in ways that create inequities in the quality of teaching and school leadership. Examples include hiring constrained by limits imposed by traditional practice, compensation and career advancement that are determined automatically, and staffing decisions governed by seniority rights and entrenched rules. The School Communities That Work task force researched companies and organizations that reshaped themselves to become \good\ and \great\ organizations. Findings allowed the task force to formulate a framework for examining and improving human-resources systems in education. Three principal elements include creating a positive and motivational organizational context, getting the best possible people into roles suitable for them and for the organization, and getting the… [PDF]

(1988). Welfare Reform. Hearings on S. 869, S. 1001, S. 1511, before the Committee on Finance. United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, First Session (October 14 and 28, 1987). Part 2 of 3. This series of hearings, the second of three on welfare reform, focuses on the following legislation: (1) the Family Security Act (S. 1511); (2) child support enforcement bills (S. 1001 and S. 869); and (3) the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Employment and Training Reorganization Act. Among the speakers and witnesses were the following: (1) Lloyd Bentsen, Senator, Texas; (2) Barbara Mikulski, Senator, Maryland; (3) Terry Sanford, Senator, North Carolina; (4) Daniel J. Evans, Senator, Washington; (5) John G. Rowland, Congressman, Connecticut; (6) Jaime B. Fuster, Resident Commissioner, Puerto Rico; (7) Nancy Johnson, Congresswoman, Connecticut; (8) Bill Clinton, Governor, Arkansas; (9) Kevin B. Aslanian, Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations; (10) Stephen Heintz, Connecticut Department of Income Maintenance; (11) Marge Roukema, Congresswoman, New Jersey; (12) Linda A. Wilcox, Maine Department of Human Services; (13) Ann C. Helton, Maryland Department of Human… [PDF]

Clifford, Earle W. (1974). On the Freedom to be Accountable. Freedom and accountability are not antithetical; they are equal elements and complementary principles in the educational equation to protect the productive pluralism of the student, the teacher, the administrator, and the institution. Pluralism is a critical value to be preserved and promoted through public policy decisions which emphasize freedom and independence. Educational institutions must receive the financial support necessary to maintain viable programs and to assure diversity, difference, and competition. The public has a right to know how public funds are being used to educate and to demand that the monies be spent wisely, but it does not have the right to interfere with basic principles of academic freedom and professional judgment. There must be educational accountability but business must not be the model. Educators' self-imposed model of accountability should focus on the outcome of the learning process as a developed value, the development of individual persons. The… [PDF]

Kurubacak, Gulsun (2006). Critical Curriculum Design for Blended Learning in Higher Education: The Strategies, Principles and Challenges of Interactive Classroom Management. Journal of Educational Technology, v3 n2 p16-25 Jul-Sep. The main purpose of this article is to introduce a critical curriculum design approach for bringing curriculum change for Blended Learning in higher education. Furthermore, the strategies, principles and challenges of this approach are also presented. This paper provides a perspective on such serious concerns as whether curriculum change should start with professors, administrators, learners, education communities and/or professional reformers at local, state and national levels. Also, this paper includes treatment of the Radical Constructivists' view of blended learning with merging Media Richness Theory. The author hopes that it emphasizes the importance of considering a wide range of situations in implementing curriculum change, of matching innovation with the realities of the interactive classroom management in higher education. Besides, the author's intention in this paper is to discuss the rights of learners and professors by fostering courtesy, confidentially and human dignity… [PDF]

(2006). Moving Men into the Mainstream: The Next Steps in Urban Reform–Putting Policy to the Test. Civic Bulletin No. 46. Center for Civic Innovation This bulletin is adapted from the third panel of three at a Manhattan Institute conference. The focus of this paper is on the re-entering ex-offender population. Howard Husock introduces the people who are on the front lines, working day-to-day with people coming out of prison, thinking about what are the right strategies. These people include Peter Cove and Mindy Tarlow who are operating programs that are taking people off the streets and trying to point them toward the mainstream, Fred Davie from Public/Private Ventures in Philadelphia who is evaluating an ambitious 17-city program that involves government money and faith-based groups to find out whether that approach is working, and Brent Orrell who works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and who has been thinking about what role the federal government ought to play. (Contains 2 footnotes.)… [PDF]

Bonnett, Michael (2006). Education for Sustainability as a Frame of Mind. Environmental Education Research, v12 n3-4 p265-276 Jul-Sep. This article will review some problems with taking the notion of sustainable development, as a policy, as the touchstone of environmental education and will explore some central strands to understanding sustainability as a frame of mind. It will be argued that at the heart of this interpretation of sustainability lies the notion of a right relationship with nature which both conditions our attitudes towards the environment and our sense of our own identity. The contribution of certain influential eco-centric accounts to the idea of sustainability is critically evaluated and a sense of sustainability is developed which is neither anthropocentric nor eco-centric. It is argued that the essence of sustainability, so conceived, is intrinsic to authentic human consciousness and some of the metaphysical issues which it raises for education and modern Western society are indicated. [Reprinted from "Environmental Education Research" (2002) 8(1), pp. 9-20.]… [Direct]

Stowe, Matt; Turnbull, Ann; Turnbull, Rud; Wehmeyer, Michael (2006). Growth Attenuation and Due Process: \A Response to Gunther and Diekema (2006)\. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities (RPSD), v31 n4 p348-351 Win. This article presents the authors' response to Gunther and Diekema's argument about growth attenuation and due process. As a case study, growth attenuation raises complicated issues. The authors address some issues that have not been sufficiently addressed. Those involve family support, assistive technology, constitutional rights to \self,\ the standards and procedures for decision making, and the social construction of disability. Then, they connect this case to two other issues: the human genome project and the uses of neuroscience. Both seek to enhance a person in order to achieve a quality of life that is more acceptable to the person, the person's family, and society. They conclude by looking to the future of enhancing the quality of life of people and families affected by disability. But they do so, fully mindful of the nation's shameful history of discrimination, all too often abetted by professionals aggressively employing usual and innovative technologies…. [Direct]

Boundy, Kathleen B.; Ordover, Eileen L. (1991). Educational Rights of Children with Disabilities: A Primer for Advocates. Intended for child advocates, this book analyzes children's educational rights under two federal statutes, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The nine chapters address the following topics: (1) the statutory framework of the two laws (including eligibility, age ranges, operation, and reach); (2) content, quality, and the meaning of "free appropriate public education" (e.g., meanings of "special education,""related services," and "least restrictive environment"); (3) special issues regarding related services (e.g., the "medical exclusion," in-school assistance with health-related needs, and children with substance abuse problems or psychiatric disorders); (4) educational evaluations (rights, procedures, and safeguards); (5) individualized education programs, placement decisions, and parent participation; (6) procedural safeguards and dispute resolution (e.g.,… [PDF]