Edward B Fiske > Publications

		A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD? It's fashionable among some school reformers today to see simple governance changes as the key to improving urban schools. Proponents of charter schools and vouchers share a belief that if local schools are freed from the heavy hand of public school bureaucracies and forced to compete for students in an education marketplace, they will have both the means and the incentives to provide quality education to students. These are intriguing-and, for some people, highly appealing-notions. The problem is that they are largely untested. Charter schools and voucher schemes in the United States are either too recent or too small in scale to constitute legitimate tests of the theory. What is needed is evidence from a sustained large-scale experiment with self-governing schools in a competitive environment. Fortunately, there is such an experiment-and it suggests that U.S. policymakers should think twice before counting on governance changes alone to solve the problems of troubled urban schools.


		THE EMPTY AISLES OF MARKETPLACE REFORM (Available at the American Association of School Administrators)


		WASTED OPPORTUNITIES: WHEN SCHOOLS FAIL What can be done to make schools more efficient? What can decision-makers, communities and schools do to enroll all children and enable them to complete at least the entire primary cycle? This report highlights the present situation of school wastage and reveals its enormous costs on educational systems, individuals and societies. (Available at UNESCO in Adobe .PDF format)


		WORLD EDUCATION FORUM REPORT / DAKAR FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION In April 2000 more than 1,100 participants from 164 countries assembled in Dakar, Senegal, for the World Education Forum. The participants ranged from teachers and researchers to government ministers and the heads of major international organizations. This volume is a report on the people, the ideas and the commitments that shaped the World Education Forum and that reminded the community of nations at the dawn of the new millennium of the importance of achieving "education for all." (Available at UNESCO in Adobe .PDF format)


		STATUS AND TRENDS: ASSESSING LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT This fifth issue of Education for All, Status and Trends, examines the reasons for the growing global interest in educational measurement, lays out some of the central findings of the movement and then takes up the all important question of how assessment of student outcomes can be put to the service of promoting quality education for all children. (Available at UNESCO in Adobe .PDF format)


		STATUS AND TRENDS: ADULT EDUCATION IN A POLARIZING WORLD This report highlights the present situation of adult basic education and some key trends in its development. The report outlines a rationale for increased investment in the basic education of adults, including its positive impact on the education of children. (Available at UNESCO in Adobe .PDF format)

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