How School Districts Can Stretch the School Dollar

While the economy may be turning around, local school districts nationwide continue to struggle mightily. The "new normal" of tougher budget times are here to stay for American K-12 education. So how can local officials cope? This policy brief provides a useful tool for navigating the financial challenges of the current school-funding climate, complete with clear dos and don'ts for anyone involved in or concerned with local education budgets. Author Michael J. Petrilli argues that quick fixes won't solve the problem, nor will slashing teacher salaries. Instead, creative, thoughtful, and fundamental changes are needed to address our budget crisis without hurting children

A Few Remarks on American Studies and the American University

This paper presents an attempt to briefly examine the specific character of the institutional site of the disciplinary articulation of knowledge in the USA. The paper proposes that such an attempt should involve several areas of focus. First, there is a need to locate the place of the American university as a subject matter within American studies as a discipline. The second question is about the need to assess the centrality of the notion of liberal education to the American university. The third question is about the current crisis of the university and whether that crisis affects the idea of liberal education. Finally, the paper also suggests that in the context of the present-day crisis it is increasingly necessary to re-problematize the question of communication among disciplines, within or outside the context of American studies

Some Comments on the Crisis in Engineering and Engineering Technology Education

The maintenance of a high-quality technological base in the United States is dependent upon adequately funded engineering programs in American colleges and universities. At the current time, many American engineering educators feel that their academic programs are in a state of crisis with respect to adequacy of resources. A number of foundations associated with large American companies (Exxon, IBM, Amoco, and others) have provided funds designed to aid engineering education. Funded programs at the national level have been proposed in Congress. At the present time, the current level of funding is still inadequate. It will take a national technological crisis to improve this situation

Some Comments on the Crisis in Engineering and Engineering Technology Education

The maintenance of a high-quality technological base in the United States is dependent upon adequately funded engineering programs in American colleges and universities. At the current time, many American engineering educators feel that their academic programs are in a state of crisis with respect to adequacy of resources. A number of foundations associated with large American companies (Exxon, IBM, Amoco, and others) have provided funds designed to aid engineering education. Funded programs at the national level have been proposed in Congress. At the present time, the current level of funding is still inadequate. It will take a national technological crisis to improve this situation

Latin America after the currency crash in Brazil : why the optimists may be wrong

The currency crisis in Brazil and its adverse effects on neighboring countries are widely perceived to be short-lived phenomena. However, optimists—stressing favorable growth and investment prospects in Latin America—tend to ignore home-made causes of Brazil's crisis and -underrate the risks ensuing for the region as a whole. • Financial turmoil in Asia and Russia induced several speculative attacks on the Brazilian real. However, domestic policy failure caused the currency collapse: The Real Plan of 1994 was undermined by delaying fiscal consolidation. Thus, crisis was looming since 1997, mainly because soaring public sector deficits eroded the sustainability of the exchange-rate peg to the US dollar. • After the decision for floating the real, Brazil still faces serious policy dilemmas. Devaluation has not prevented a further rise in interest rates. Mounting debt-service obligations represent a fiscal time bomb. Restructuring short-term debt involves the risk of prolonged financial volatility. It cannot be ruled out that Brazil will impose capital outflow controls, the drawbacks of such a move notwithstanding. Brazil's crisis affects neighboring countries in several ways. Contagion transmitted through financial markets has remained limited so far. If financial turbulence continues in Brazil, however, the pressure on exchange rates, interest rates and stock markets is likely to increase in other Latin American countries. Contagion through trade hits Brazil's Mercosur partners in the first place. Mexico, too, may be affected as the devaluation of the real impairs the international price competitiveness of Mexican exporters on third markets. In addition, the crisis may disrupt intra-Latin American investment relations. Short-term economic prospects of Latin America would deteriorate if the United States were no longer prepared to absorb rising exports of crisis-ridden emerging markets. Protectionist sentiments may also spread in Latin America, especially if world-market prices of the region's major commodity exports remain depressed. In the light of Latin America's strong reliance on foreign capital, the greatest risk appears to be that external financing of current account deficits will be curtailed. The current crisis may have as a result that structural reforms, required for Latin America's successful participation in globalized production, will take second place for the time being. This applies especially to Brazil where fiscal discipline required for short-term stabilization clashes with public investment needs, notably in education. Deregulation of labor markets may be postponed in other Latin American countries, too, in order to contain unemployment in the short run. Yet, Latin American governments should signal their determination to stick to reforms even under conditions of financial turmoil. Privatization and public sector reforms supporting better governance are of critical importance in this respect. --

The crisis in American education: The impact on vocational education

This thesis is an interpretation and evaluation of the problems in the American education system which is failing American citizens by annually producing thousands of illiterates. Moreover, schools are failing to provide an adequate number of skilled workers for government, the military, and business and industry, and that trend will continue unless a drastic restructuring of the entire school system takes place; The paper examines reports on the crisis in education, reviews problems of illiteracy and the impact on technical skills, details concerns of the military, business and industry, and interested individuals regarding the quality of education in the U.S. Current efforts to solve the problem of mediocrity in education are considered, focusing on vocational education programs. Finally, the paper addresses issues of ethics involved in the failure to provide America\u27s youth a quality education, and assesses the American work ethic

Seeing Higher Education and Faculty Responsibility Through Richard Matasar\u27s Critiques of Law Schools: College Completion, Economic Viability, and the Liberal Arts Ideal in Higher Education

Professor John Valery White argues that the crisis in higher education has been framed around discomfort with and critiques of changes that have taken place in the last few decades as universities grew and became more complex, and more expensive. These arguments raise valid and significant concerns about higher education and its subcomponents like legal education but on the whole have missed the true challenge to higher education of recent years. He argues that the significant current policy push to improve college attainment has led to the loss of academic authority and leadership by higher education institutions, their administrators, and especially their faculties. This policy challenge has focused discussion on the financial model of higher education and triggered arguments rejecting the core principle around which American higher education has been built. These changes demand faculty leadership in pursuit of what Richard Matasar has termed the value proposition in his critiques of legal education. He contends, however, that the existing framework for critiquing higher education obscures the current challenges institutions face and undercuts institutions\u27 ability to meet those challenges, focused as it is on lamenting changes to higher education that are well settled

Gender and the Crisis in Legal Education: Remaking the Academy in Our Image

American legal education is in the grip of what some have called an “existential crisis.” The New York Times proclaims the death of the current system of legal education. This is attributed, in part, to the incentivizing of faculty to produce increasingly abstract scholarship and the costs this imposes on pedagogy and the mentoring of students. At the same time, despite women graduating from law schools in significant numbers since the 1980s, they continue to lag behind in the most prestigious positions in academia—tenured, full professorships: From academic year 1998-99 to academic year 2007-08, the percentage of women full professors grew from 20% to 29.3%. In this paper, I argue that these two phenomena—the incentivizing of scholarship at the expense of pedagogy and the slow progress of women to tenured, full professorships—are linked. The trend toward exclusively incentivizing scholarship imposes a disproportionate cost on women faculty who carry a much greater share of the caregiving and household responsibilities in their families. These women are also burdened by a disproportionate share of the student caregiving and institutional “housework” on committees inside law schools. In this paper, I argue that the external pressure on law schools created by the crisis actually presents an opportunity for women faculty. Part I describes the origins of the modern university and the unified model of teaching and scholarship. Part II evaluates the costs of this model to legal education as highlighted by the critics in the current crisis. Part III explores the heightened cost to women law faculty of this model adopted from the broader university. And Part IV offers suggestions for fundamentally restructuring the legal academy to provide a level playing field for women faculty and to facilitate their movement in equal numbers into tenured, full professorships

A Crucible Moment and the Current State of Engagement: A Conversation with Caryn McTighe Musil

This article discusses A Crucible Moment, a “National Call to Action” by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement commissioned by the Department of Education. The report describes a national crisis in civic engagement and calls on higher education to make civic learning and democratic engagement an expected part of every student’s college education. The article includes an interview with the report’s lead author, Caryn McTighe Musil, who offers her view on the current state of engagement in American universities, describes the process through which A Crucible Moment was produced, and discusses the concepts of collective civic problem solving and generative partnerships. I reflect on key themes from the interview and A Crucible Moment and explore how readers can work to improve regional engagement efforts on their campuses in response to this call

Reversing the Tide in Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (Stem): Academically Gifted African American Students in Historically Black Colleges & Universities

What started off as a national concern has escalated to the point of crisis (Bonner, Alfred, Lewis, Nave & Frizell, 2009; Chubin & Malcolm, 2008; Hrabowski, Summers & Hrabowski, 2006). The current state of affairs regarding African American participation in STEM disciplines has become one of the thorniest issues of contemporary focus. This article highlights data collected for a NSF Education Research grant. The focus of this HBCU-UP project was to uncover factors contributing to the success of academically gifted (high-achieving) African American students enrolled in engineering programs at the 12 ABET accredited four-year institutions in the U.S. Specifically, this research highlights qualitative case study data including key categories and themes identified as impacting the academic success of this high-achieving cohort across each of the 12 institutions included in this study. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations are provided to increase the success of African American gifted students in STEM fields at HBCUs