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.     

Working conditions in urban schools

The recent wave of reform reports in education promulgated a wide variety of recommendations to address identified concerns. This research explores an issue mostly ignored by the reform reports, the working conditions teachers face. Utilizing ethnographic techniques and multisite analyses of in-depth case studies of six schools in two large urban areas, the authors identify five broad categories of stressors in the work environment, including governance/leadership, budget cuts, security, staff relations, and student issues. In addition, two major themes characterizing working conditions for teachers are specified, the no respect syndrome and barriers to teaching. The need to address these issues before attempting to implement the major reforms in the national reports is highlighted.     

Information-seeking behavior changes in community-based teaching practices.

A National Library of Medicine information access grant allowed for a collaborative project to provide computer resources in fourteen clinical practice sites that enabled health care professionals to access medical information via PubMed and the Internet. Health care professionals were taught how to access quality, cost-effective information that was user friendly and would result in improved patient care. Selected sites were located in medically underserved areas and received a computer, a printer, and, during year one, a fax machine. Participants were provided dial-up Internet service or were connected to the affiliated hospital's network. Clinicians were trained in how to search PubMed as a tool for practicing evidence-based medicine and to support clinical decision making. Health care providers were also taught how to find patient-education materials and continuing education programs and how to network with other professionals. Prior to the training, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their computer skills and familiarity with searching the Internet, MEDLINE, and other health-related databases. Responses indicated favorable changes in information-seeking behavior, including an increased frequency in conducting MEDLINE searches and Internet searches for work-related information.     

The reform of post‐16 education and training and the lessons from Europe

Abstract

With the future shape of Britain's post‐16 education and training still undecided policy makers are increasingly looking abroad for new models to follow. The educational debate has become internationalized. As in the late 19th century it is the pressure of economic competition from Europe which has galvanized British interest in the relative ‘success’ of training in countries such as France and Germany.

This paper examines the current use and misuse of comparative examples in British debates over reform. It analyses the systems of vocational education and training (VET) in France, Germany, and Sweden and assesses what lessons, if any, we can draw from them for the reform of British VET.