Education & Pedagogy

During the late 1980s, registered-nurse education moved from hospital-based training to higher education in both Australia and the United Kingdom. Differences in funding arrangements in the two countries can be explained by two separate movements impacting health care policy: the professionalization of nursing and economic rationalization. Contains 60 references. (Author/SV)

The media continues to be blamed by higher education administrators for blowing college costs out of proportion. While there may be reasonable answers to questions about higher education costs and productivity, the media have to ask them and institutions must respond. Weak coverage of higher education by the media does not help higher education. (MSE)

Describes how the special education faculty and the general education faculty at Northwestern State University of Louisiana carried out a co-planning and co-teaching effort in four classes of the undergraduate elementary education methods block. Discusses key questions they considered, presents the model they developed for this process, and notes nine positive outcomes of such teaching arrangements. (SR)

Suggests that private school choice initiatives, though fiercely opposed by teacher unions and civil-liberties groups, will allow minority students from poor urban areas to succeed educationally. Urban minority parents support school choice. If U.S. politicians and citizens truly believe in the right to life, liberty, and the freedom to better one's condition, they will allow such students to succeed. (SM)

School choice is a promising education reform in the U.S., transferring power over basic education decisions from bureaucrats to parents and allowing poor children a chance to receive excellent education. This paper describes three categories of choice, examines the Constitution and Supreme Court, explains how to design a legally sound school choice program, and discusses state constitutions and choice. (SM)

An important civil-rights issue concerns educational enfranchisement. Wealthy parents can consider both public and private schools for their children, but poor parents must send their children to public schools nearest them, regardless of their quality. This paper describes New Jersey's takeover of urban Jersey City's public schools, explaining that educational enfranchisement is the key to poor children's future. (SM)

Explores the interpersonal dynamics of a graduate-student teaching-assistant supervisor, a department chair, a cooperating teacher, and a student teacher in a traditional university teacher-education program. Data from interviews, observations, conferences, and discussions indicated that the supervisor felt unsupported and disenfranchised, suggesting that teacher-education programs must consider reform efforts related to the supervisor role. (SM)

Review of "Women, Education, and Development in Asia: Cross-National Perspectives" (Grace Mak, editor) and "Girls' Schooling, Women's Autonomy and Fertility Change in South Asia" (Roger Jeffery, Alaka Basu, editors) discusses the unpredictable impact of schooling on women, a critical gender-based perspective on human capital theory, effects of schooling on fertility, and women as agents of development. (SV)

Asserts that formal education should impart tacit knowledge--a complex set of understandings one must possess to live and function successfully in society--as well as traditional disciplines, theories, and cognitive skills. Discusses modeling attitudes, values, ways of life, and democracy to students, and what should be expected of a particular curriculum and its outcomes. Contains 63 references. (VWC)

Education of medical students in the basic and clinical sciences must be integrated into a seamless curriculum over four years, team-taught by both a clinician and a basic scientist. Medical students must be able to perform an initial evaluation of a neurological complaint and know when consultation is needed. (Author/MSE)

This third article in a series for an American Association of American Colleges and Universities project, "The State of Liberal Education," analyzes findings in five areas of inquiry conceptual foundations, curricular expressions, the phenomena and assessment of liberal learning, institutional mission, and the status and relevance of liberal education as they apply to Portland State University (Oregon). (MSE)

Feminist theory is reexamined in the context of recent theory concerning pragmatic liberal education, and many similar principles are found. Topics discussed include feminist theory and the structure of college administration; the future of reform; and collaborative leadership for change. It is argued that both hierarchy and homogeneity must be challenged within the academy. (MSE)

Describes a new outcomes-based teacher-education curriculum being introduced in South Africa, noting its compatibility with complexity theory, which advocates self-organization, unpredictability, and randomness. While outcomes-based education is criticized for being behavioristic, for its prescriptiveness, for its rejection of modernism's formulas, and for being a technistic response to marketplace demands, complexity theory provides a monitoring framework for it. (Author/MSE)

Analysis of trends in state funding for public higher education and for prisoner education finds that in the period 1977 to 1995, funding for correctional higher education increased, on average, twice as much as did support for public colleges. The trend is seen to hurt both minority students and the larger society. Data on funding changes in each state are presented. (MSE)

Presents statistics that document the status of African Americans in higher education. Much recent progress in the Education Equality Index the journal computes comes from gains made in the past several years that are only now reported by the government. Recent political and social developments, such as opposition to affirmative action, may undercut these gains. (SLD)