Mission matters: The cost of small high schools revisited

With the financial support of several large foundations and the federal government, creating small schools has become a prominent high school reform strategy in many large American cities. While some research supports this strategy, little research assesses the relative costs of these smaller schools. We use data on over 200 New York City high schools, from 1996 through 2003, to estimate school cost functions relating per pupil expenditures to school size, controlling for school output and quality, student characteristics, and school organization.We find that the structure of costs differs across schools depending upon mission—comprehensive or themed. At their current levels of outputs, themed schools minimize per pupil costs at smaller enrollments than comprehensive schools, but these optimally sized themed schools also cost more per pupil than optimally sized comprehensive schools. We also find that both themed and comprehensive high schools at actual sizes are smaller than their optimal sizes.     

Artificial intelligence knowledge acquisition techniques for instructional development

Knowledge engineering techniques for developing expert systems may also be useful for instructional development. A review of knowledge engineering focusing on knowledge representation and knowledge acquisition suggests ways in which these methods could be adapted to developing instructional systems. As further work is done on intelligent computer-assisted instructional systems and other complex instructional development projects, knowledge engineering skills may become more important for the instructional developer.     

Motivating Individuals: Growing research from a “fragile base”

Tertiary Education and Management - Faculty around the world are experiencing changes in their academic work. While “traditional” universities are responding to demands for greater...