Economics and Politics of Work-Family Policy: The Case for a State Family Leave Insurance Program

Highlights the lack of paid sick and family leave laws and the need for family leave insurance, an employee-paid program that provides partial wage replacement when workers take time off to care for an ill family member or newborn or newly adopted child

Young Australians, illness and education: report on the national database project

Chronically-ill children who need to take extended absences from school are neither officially acknowledged nor assisted to keep up, according to this report. Executive summary Australia’s health system faces many challenges related to chronic and complex health conditions. Major advances in biomedicine mean that children and young people are now surviving conditions that would have meant early death just a short time ago. This has major implications for Australia’s education systems.   A troubling side effect of this success in medicine is the number of children and young people who manage their chronic health conditions, but who can easily remain overlooked in education. In many ways this is a new frontier for teachers, schools and education systems. Never before have so many students been present in our classrooms, who have survived major health challenges, but who are not yet systematically supported to thrive in education.   This report provides a detailed summary of education, health and demographic information about Australian children and young people who live with significant health conditions. This study closely examined an important national database of 2360 such individuals.   This study is contextualised within recent international literature from the fields of education, medicine, oncology, public health, paediatric nursing, psychology, counselling, psychiatry and social policy. Socio-economic indexes developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics were employed in the analysis of data.   As Australian government figures are not available about these young people as an educational cohort, the major purpose of this study was to provide an empirical base for policy recommendation and further investigation. An important secondary aim of the study was to contribute to the growing body of evidence about pressing educational issues related to these children and young people. Concern about the education of this group is expected to escalate as this cohort of Australian students continues to expand, due to advances in biomedicine

Partnerships for learning : an international perspective on the development of inclusive schools

One of the most difficult issues faced in school university partnerships is the legitimacy of the collaborative relationship. Getting invited in as a university partner and staying on to support teacher knowledge is challenging. Through an account of a case study set in one large secondary school located in the western suburbs of Victoria, we disentangle the importance of seldom considered barriers that impact on professional learning. Shaping our understanding through a theoretical model where the movement between identity, beliefs and decision and action is identified as \u27noticing\u27 (Moss et al. 2004, Mason 2002) we describe the potential of the model in developing a \u27pedagogy of hope\u27 (hooks 2003). Noticing, working at the elusive intersections of observation and construction, permits non-linear connections. A \u27pedagogy of hope\u27 works for a sustainable learning community- a community for all students, teachers and school leaders.<br /

Principal Turnover in Illinois Public Schools, 2001-2008

Analyzes trends in turnover among public school principals in 2001-08 compared with 1987-2001, school-based and personal reasons for the moves, characteristics of their new positions, and the role of school accountability pressures. Examines implications

Paying for College: Availability of Need-Based Financial Aid for New Jersey's Working Adults

Examines barriers to low-income working adult students' access to Education Opportunity Fund and Tuition Aid Grants; challenges such as childcare needs; and lack of data for tracking the state's progress in making college affordable. Recommends reforms

Quality here, there and everywhere: the application of a multi-dimensional learning tool to learning disability health services

The following paper examines the applicability of Maxwell’s (1984) Multi-dimensional Quality Evaluation model to community learning disability health services. The model defines seven dimensions against which the quality of any given service can be measured. Effectiveness, Efficiency, Economy, Equity, Access to Services, Appropriateness and Social Acceptability. A number of examples in relation to community learning disability services are given and discussed