Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
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Counseling in Turkey: Current Status and Future Challenges
Suleyman Dogan
In this article a special emphasis is placed on the current status and the future challenges of counseling in Turkey. A brief history of counseling in Turkey, current developments, and the basic issues in this field are pointed out. Finally, the future challenges and recommendations to improve the current status of counseling are discussed.
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Public Policy on Distance Learning in Higher Education: California State and Western Governors Association Initiatives
Gary A. Berg
The Western Governors University (WGU) and the California Virtual University (CVU) are revealing examples of the complex issues involved in implementing distance learning on the public policy level. Although technology is certainly important, it has masked the fact that the WGU and CVU initiatives mark the rise of learner-centered higher education and the increased role of business in the academy. In comparing and contrasting WGU and CVU, it is clear that the WGU is a more radical proposition because of competency-based credit and the connection with private industry. ...
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Educational Standards and the Problem of Error
Noel Wilson
This study is about the categorisation of people in educational settings. It is clearly positioned from the perspective of the person categorised, and is particularly concerned with the violations involved when the error components of such categorisations are made invisible. Such categorisations are important. The study establishes the centrality of the measurement of educational standards to the production and control of the individual in society, and indicates the destabilising effect of doubts about the accuracy of such categorisations. ...
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Socrates Invades Central Europe
Joseph Slowinski
The objective of this article is to explore the current reality faced by higher education students in Central and Eastern Europe and to draw out the implications of this current reality for policy makers in the future. In the article, I explore the influence of transnational corporations' training programs on education as it currently pertains to Central and Eastern European higher education and employment. ...
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"The Art of Punishing": The Research Assessment Exercise and the Ritualisation of Power in Higher Education
Lee-Anne Broadhead and Sean Howard
In this article it is argued that the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)--undertaken by the United Kingdom's Higher Education Funding Councils (HEFC)--is part of a much larger process of assessment in education generally. By taking the RAE as its focus, this article uses a Foucaultian analysis to amplify the nature and practice of disciplinary power in the setting of Higher Education. ...
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Educational Research in Latin America: Review and Perspectives
Abdeljalil Akkari and Soledad Perez
The present paper consists of four primary sections. First, we describe the historical context of educational research in Latin America. In the second section, we focus on various theoretical frameworks that are applied to educational research in the region. We identify the main institutions involved in this research in the third section. Finally, in conclusion we offer suggestions that we consider to be of greatest priority for the future of educational research in Latin America.
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School Improvement Policy: Have Administrative Functions of Principals Changed in Schools Where Site-Based Management is Practiced?
C. Kenneth Tanner and Cheryl D. Stone
Have administrative functions of principals changed in schools practicing site-based management (SBM) with shared governance? To deal with this issue we employed the Delphi technique and a panel of 24 experts from 14 states. The experts, which included educational specialists, researchers, writers, and elementary school principals, agreed that the implementation of SBM dramatically influences the roles of the principal in management/administration and leadership. Data revealed that the elementary principal's leadership role requires specialized skills to support shared governance, making it necessary to form professional development programs that adapt to innovations evolving from the implementation of SBM.
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A Remarkable Move of Restructuring: Chinese Higher Education
Fang Zhao
In this article, the current remarkable trend of institutional amalgamation and the establishment of cross-institutional consortiums in China are examined. The principal purpose of this study is to explore policy options on issues connected with the trend and the significant implications of the trend for the future development of higher education in China. I discuss the outstanding issues raised in the restructuring, the main factors behind them and proposes policy options to redress the adversities of the trend at the end. The article draws on national data as well as a case study. The research reported here is constructive for comparative and empirical research of similar issues in international perspectives.
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Comparative Issues of Selection in Europe: The Case of Greece
Dionysios Gouvias
This article deals with inequality of access to higher education in Greece, and especially, the case of the Metropolitan Area of Athens. Specifically, I deal with a general overview of the debates about "selection" in the educational systems of Europe, with special reference to the case of Greece. It is argued here that in those levels of the educational "ladder" where the degree of specialisation and the need for individual selection is insignificant, inequalities exist, but are not profound. ...
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Planting Land Minds in Common Ground: A Review of Charles Glenn's Review of Short Route to Chaos
Stephen Arons
Arons responds to what he considers to be Glenn's misrepresentations of the tone and content of Short Route To Chaos. He writes that Glenn "appears to be attempting to construct the book's message into just one more salvo fired in the endless school wars. It is anything but....Reading Glenn's review, one is left with the impression that the book is a Christian-bashing, left-leaning, work of communitarian fuzziness in which a legal scholar unaccountably refuses to confine himself to ... technical explication of existing constitutional doctrine." ...
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Review of Stephen Arons's Short Route to Chaos
Charles L. Glenn
Review of Stephen Aron's "Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the Re-constitution of American Schooling"
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The Political Legacy of School Accountability Systems
Sherman Dorn
The recent battle reported from Washington about proposed national testing program does not tell the most important political story about high stakes tests. Politically popular school accountability systems in many states already revolve around statistical results of testing with high-stakes environments. The future of high stakes tests thus does not depend on what happens on Capitol Hill. Rather, the existence of tests depends largely on the political culture of published test results. ...
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Changing Definitions and Off-loading Responsibility in Alberta's Post-Secondary System
Robert J. Barnetson
The introduction of a performance-based funding mechanism by Alberta's provincial government alters the public definition of "educational quality" and fully shifts the responsibility for declining educational quality from the provincial government onto institutions. This article outlines the process by which the provincial government has compelled institutions to accept this redefinition and transfer despite the substantial loss of institutional autonomy it entails. The implications of this change are explored and possible reasons are suggested.
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Academic Freedom, Promotion, Reappointment, Tenure and the Administrative Use of Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF): (Part IV) Analysis and Implications of Views from the Court in Relation to Academic Freedom, Standards, and Quality Instruction
Robert E. Haskell
In three previous papers, it was noted that while a controversial history of research on the reliability and validity of student evaluation of faculty (SEF) exists, it has not been typically viewed as an infringement on academic freedom. As a consequence, legal aspects of SEF are neither readily apparent, nor available. Moreover, SEF has not been generally seen as an infringement on, and detriment to, academic standards and quality instruction. The article is a review of SEF legal rulings analyzed in terms of their implications for academic freedom and quality of instruction in higher education.
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The Use and Abuse of Socrates in Present Day Teaching
Anthony G. Rud Jr.
The Greek philosopher Socrates is used as an example of a master teacher in in many contexts, from elementary school discussions, to college philosophy classes, to law school. I examine a number of current uses of Socratic teaching, and expose inconsistencies among them. I analyze critically recent practitioners of Socratic teaching, such as Mortimer Adler, and I consider how the celebrated primary teacher Vivian Gussin Paley enacts the Socratic legacy in a novel way. I argue that the misuse, or abuse, of the Socratic legacy occurs chiefly when his teaching is interpreted narrowly as a pedagogical technique devoid of context and irony.
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Comprehensive Study of Factors Impacting Perceived Quality in School Organizations: Findings from Research on Quality Assessment in Iowa School Districts
William K. Poston Jr.
This paper presents the findings of studies conducted at Iowa State University of public schools in Iowa in the area of perceived quality assessment. Demographic characteristics of the respondents on the Perceived Quality Assessment Instrument from forty-four school districts were described by position, home annual income, gender, age, level of education, and years experience in current or a similar job. ...
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Academic Freedom, Promotion, Reappointment, Tenure and the Administrative Use of Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF): (Part III) Analysis and Implications of Views from the Court in Relation to Accuracy and Psychometric Validity
Robert E. Haskell
In two previous papers, it was noted that while a controversial history of research on the reliability and validity of student evaluation of faculty (SEF) exists, it has not been typically viewed as an infringement on academic freedom, promotion, reappointment, and tenure rights. As a consequence, legal aspects of SEF are neither readily apparent, nor available. ...
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Academic Freedom, Promotion, Reappointment, Tenure and the Administrative Use of Student Evaluation of Faculty (SEF): (Part II) Views from the Court
Robert E. Haskell
Though a controversial history of research on the reliability and validity of student evaluation of faculty (SEF) exists, it has not been typically viewed as an infringement on academic freedom, promotion, reappointment, and tenure rights. As a consequence, legal aspects of SEF are neither readily apparent, nor available. Unlike academic freedom, tenure, and other issues, which exist as legal categories, SEF as a category is virtually absent in legal compendia on higher education law. ...
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Staffing Up and Dropping Out: Unintended Consequences of High Demand for Teachers
Mark Fetler
Growing public school enrollment and the need to maintain or improve service to students has increased the demand for teachers, perhaps more rapidly than existing sources can accommodate. While some schools recruit well qualified teachers by offering higher salaries or better working conditions, others may satisfy their need for staff by relaxing hiring standards or assigning novice teachers to difficult classrooms. ...
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Early Childhood Evaluation and Policy Analysis: A Communicative Framework for the Next Decade
Cynthia Wallat and Carolyn Piazza
A major challenge for the next generation of students of human development is to help shape the paradigms by which we analyze and evaluate public policies for children and families. … This article suggests how traditional approaches to policy inquiry can be reconsidered in light of these research inquiry and communicative skills needed by all policy researchers. A fifteen year review of both policy and discourse processes research is presented to suggest ways toconduct policy studies within a communicative framework.
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Rhetoric and Educational Policies on the Use of History for Citizenship Education in England from 1880-1990
Jessie Y.Y. Wong
This article attempts to review the rhetoric and the educational policies on the use of history for citizenship education from 1880-1990 in England. …
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Qualitative Research Methods: An Essay Review
Les McLean, Margaret Myers, Carol Smillie, and Dale Vaillancourt
The authors ask us to explore the topic of "qualitative confirmation" in relation to the processes and outcomes of qualitative research practice. The question that directs their inquiry is "how can we make a case that qualitative data or findings warrant the inferences about the topics we are studying?" We review the historical discussion of confirmation theory within the logic of discovery, consider hypothesis generation and methodological decisions as instruments of the research process and then apply the Miller and Fredericks framework of rules to a published report of qualitative research. ...
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Studying the Rural in Education: Nation-Building, "Globalization," and School Improvement
Craig B. Howley
This essay maintains that nation-building, partly through systems of schooling, has served rather more to debase than improve the rural circumstance. It suggests that a different logic of improvement is needed in rural education, but refrains from prescriptions. Instead, it focuses its attention on the sort of questions that researchers (and school improvers, for that matter) might ask to discover or invent that logic variously. ...
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Centralized Goal Formation and Systemic Reform: Reflections on Liberty, Localism and Pluralism
Kenneth A. Strike
This paper asks whether there are reasonable concerns about liberty raised by standards driven systemic reform. Part I explores three kinds of concerns, students' interests in autonomy and authenticity, academic freedom, and pluralism. Part II explores two ways of conceptualizing the balance between liberty and various public interests, neo-classical economics and contemporary conservative thought. ...
