SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Report

American education is undergoing rapid change. Concern over poor student performance, the ability and motivation of teachers, and the inefficiency of school bureaucracy have led to numerous recommendations for changing the structure of American education. These vary from small changes in the current structure to wholesale privatization of public schools. The contributions in this book discuss a wide range of proposals, including greater school choice, charter schools, promoting contact with the business community, public-private partnerships, and more. Several chapters assess the current research on choice and restructuring. Overall the consensus is that proposed reforms have a good chance of yielding significant benefits.

This expertly prepared policy issues handbook surveys the changing workplace and the failures of America's public health and education systems to prepare the future work force to compete at home and abroad. Carl Stenberg and William Colman analyze the key issues; review a mass of information, ideas, and insights about policy options that are available; and assess their pros and cons. Students, teachers, administrators, policymakers, and concerned citizens will find a wealth of clearly presented data along with careful analyses of the major proposals for reform. Figures, tables, short summaries, appendices, bibliographical aids, and a full index make this one-volume landmark reference accessible to researchers and readers at different levels and for varied use.

With some 700,000 civilian employees, the Department of Defense is the single largest employer of civil service workers in the U.S. government. The Office of the Chancellor for Education and Professional Development in the Department of Defense (DoD) is charged with ensuring the quality and productivity of education and professional development activities targeted at DoD civilians. At the request of the Chancellor's office, RAND undertook a study to examine the approaches used to evaluate academic quality and productivity in a variety of postsecondary education and training contexts, including corporations, state governments, and universities. The study then considered which approaches might be most relevant to the Chancellor1s office.

Based on five years of research in high school and community college programs, this book explores the potential for using work-based learning as part of a broad education reform strategy.

The book provides an historical overview of adult literacy theory, policy, practice, and research from the mid-1980s to the present. The main focus is an analysis of three distinctive schools of literacy: the Freirean-based participatory literacy movement grounded in oppositional politics and community activism; the British-based New Literacy Studies that focuses on the ways in which students utilise various literacy practices in their daily lives; and the US federal government's focus on functional literacy.