Blockchain Papers

Jane Hannaway

In 2014, the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) held its thirty-ninth annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. The relevance of the host city for much of the research presented at the conference was not lost on most members.A little over forty years ago the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in San Antonio v. Rodriguez [411 U.S. 1 (1973)] that education is not a fundamental right protected by the U.S. Constitution. Parents had brought suit arguing that basing school financing on property wealth resulted in the unequal provision of education, presumably a fundamental right. The Supreme Court decision was a close one, at 5 to 4. If the decision had gone the other way, we would likely now have a national education system. Instead, what evolved is a complex system of education policy making, often described as a “marble cake federalism,” where different levels of government intermingle in different ways in policies and programs or as a “Rube-Goldberg-like” machine where complicated hoops and hurdles are required to produce relatively simple policy inputs.Something else has changed in the last forty years. The United States led the world throughout the twentieth century in expanding access to secondary and college education (Goldin and Katz 2000; Goldin 2001) but it is no longer the leader in access—nor for that matter doesit lead in performance. Relative to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, U.S. performance on the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2012) is middling at best, and secondary school completion is similar. And the rest of the world is fast catching up with the United States in college completion. In 1995, the United States ranked first in college graduation among OECD countries. Today, it ranks 19th out of the 28 countries studied (OECD 2014).In addition, the United States—traditionally seen as the land of opportunity—has relatively low educational mobility: The fraction of young adults in the United States with education levels lower than their parents is higher than the OECD average. Indeed, out of the 21 countries included in the analysis, the United States ranks 18th (OECD 2014). Lack of social mobility weakens social cohesion and trust in a society's institutions.Education ranking of countries is more than a simple top ten list. Education quality is a key ingredient for a country's economic growth (Nelson and Phelps 1966; Hanushek and Woessmann 2007). Major national economic policy leaders are increasingly stressing the importance of education for the country's economic well-being (e.g., Bernanke 2007). President Obama warns that “Countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow” (Obama 2011). Indeed, he has called education “the economic issue of our time” (Obama 2010).In a speech on inequality, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen (2014) identifies education as a key “cornerstone” of opportunity affecting intergenerational mobility. She points out that, unlike most other advanced countries, students from low income families in the United States often receive less public education support than students from more advantaged families because school financing is heavily based on subnational (state and local) taxes. The old problem associated with the Rodriguez case emerges again, but perhaps in a broader way. Most of our economic competitors have not only more equal funding but also national systems of education where both education policies, including performance standards and funding, are largely set for the country as a whole.The focus of this essay, as the title suggests, is to advocate for new and renewed efforts in analyzing the dynamics behind shifts in education governance in the United States and their effects on national policies, practices, and performance going forward.Much of the work presented at AEFP conferences evaluates education policies and practices using experimental methods, with random assignment, or rigorous quasi-experimental strategies, such as regression discontinuity designs. This work will, and should, always be a large and important part of AEFP's portfolio. It provides policy makers with valuable information about the likely productivity effects of different courses of action. The extent and ways in which policy makers and other influential parties respond to such information, however, is complicated. And the complications are also worth studying.In short, I am suggesting that it may serve us, and the field, well to broaden our horizon. In some sense, I suggest we revisit some of our earlier roots, and expend greater effort examining cross-level institutional incentives and constraints that affect federal, state, and local policy making, as well as the resources and political pressures at different levels that shape policies and foster or inhibit productive education change. This is a call for more research on the political economy of education policy making.Constitutionally, states control what is taught and who teaches. Curriculum and standards are formally within the purview of the state, as are human capital policies that set teacher and administrator certification requirements, hiring, pay, tenure, and so forth. The traditional federal role has been one of equity with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as its centerpiece. Federal funds have largely been intended to target special services to disadvantaged students without supplanting state and local funds. Accountability exercised by the federal government historically has been pretty much limited to distributional accountability. That is, ensuring that federal funds, which represent a little more than 10 percent of expenditures, are directed to disadvantaged students.The last few years, however, have been a game-changing time for federal education policy in the United States, with major implications for state and local education efforts and their direction. The federal efforts are heavily driven by a recognition of the importance of education policy for national economic objectives, as well as traditional equity objectives. For education researchers, it has been particularly heady because research has played a big role in shaping the thinking behind many of the changes, and continues to do so. The story of the game-changing is familiar to education policy observers, but a quick review of what has happened, and what is still uncertain, may help set the stage for thoughts on where additional research on education governance might be insightful.Passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 was the first big game changer for federal education policy since the 1960s and, in many ways, it opened the door for more recent, bolder efforts.The law required states to establish academic performance standards for all students within their state, and to hold schools and school districts accountable for student progress in meeting those standards. Schools not making adequate academic progress faced sanctions. Standards and accountability, once the sole responsibility of state and local education agencies, were now required by Washington, even if many of the details were left to the states. In addition, teachers were expected to meet “high quality” standards, that is, meet state certification requirements. States could opt out of the NCLB requirements but they risked losing federal dollars. Some states balked at the law's provisions, and the increased reach of the federal government, but all eventually signed on. The legislation likely never would have passed without the strong bipartisan leadership of President George W. Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy.The expectation, specified in the law (which is still on the books at the time of this writing), is that all students would reach state-established academic proficiency levels by the 2013–14 school year. It turned out to be a humbling pipe dream.In 2011, about half of the nation's schools did not make adequate progress. Four states had school failure rates approaching 90 percent (Usher 2012). This was in spite of the fact that an easy way to meet the proficiency level was to lower standards. In fact, an analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, using the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as the standard, found that not only did states vary in the rigor of their standards, but fifteen states had lowered their standards between 2005 and 2007 to avoid sanctions (NCES 2011). A more recent analysis by Gary Phillips (2014), using international benchmarks, found that the standards gap between states with the highest standards and those with the lowest standards represents between three to four grade levels of performance. He concludes: “50 states going in 50 different directions cannot lead to national success that is globally competitive” (p. 4).But the story doesn't end there—the game changed again. Another set of major education policy shifts emerged in the latter part of the decade and is currently underway, and then another. All are intended to raise education performance nationally. All increase the federal role, and all are designed in ways to induce state cooperation.Under the Obama Administration, teacher policies—traditionally determined by states—took center stage. Three notable teacher policy shifts mark Game Changer 2. The first shifted the focal unit of accountability from schools, as in NCLB, to teachers. The second shifted the basis of teacher quality from input (i.e., qualifications) to output (student performance). The third shifted accountability based on student academic proficiency levels to accountability based on student academic gains. These are major policy changes.The shifts were accomplished through incentive-based reform initiatives developed by the executive branch of the government under the financial challenges of the Great Recession. State and local coffers were coming up short, and education jobs were at risk. The economic stimulus funds (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) provided $100 billion for education support. The funds were critically needed but they came with strings or, at least, a strong expectation that states focus on four priority areas of reform. One key area was “increasing teacher effectiveness” partly through evaluating teachers on the basis of student achievement.1The Obama Administration also used part of the stimulus funds to spur new ways of doing things. A national competition—Race to the Top—was established with $4.35 billion to support states proposing to make dramatic progress on the reform activities. The winners would be the pacesetters of reform. The criteria used to evaluate state proposals gave heaviest weight to reforms focused on “improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance.” Weight was also given to proposals that fully developed and used individual-level longitudinal data systems to track individual student performance gains to inform instructional efforts. At the time the NCLB legislation was passed, only a small handful of states had the data capacity to assess student gains and to link students to their teachers. By 2011, it was different. Since 2005, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded more than half a billion dollars to states to develop individual level longitudinal education data systems. The number of states able to link student data with their teacher increased from four in 2005 to forty-four in 2011.Most states, hungry for financial support, competed to be bold reformers of human capital policies, an entrenched policy area that was traditionally mired in politics, complex sets of state laws, and practices heavily shaped by local collective bargaining agreements. To ensure that real reform would occur, state proposals had to be endorsed by state officials, local administrators, and unions. Eleven states and the District of Columbia were winners in the first two rounds of the competition and an additional seven states won awards in 2011.2 In all, nearly 40 percent of states competed and won, thereby accepting the human capital reform challenge.New changes emerged in 2011, again with incentives provided by the executive branch to induce state pursuit of favored policies. A divided U.S. Congress was unable to come to agreement on reauthorization of NCLB, and many schools and districts were facing serious sanctions for not achieving the performance levels specified in NCLB. The Obama Administration agreed to grant states waivers from key provisions in NCLB law but, again, there were strings attached. In exchange for relief of some of the terms of NCLB, states had to propose a plan in line with the Administration's reform agenda. Again, key among the items was evaluating teachers, in part, on the basis of students’ test scores. By August 2012, thirty-three states had been granted waivers. Many waivers expired at the end of the 2013–14 academic year, and the U.S. Department of Education granted extensions to states for another year on the basis of reform progress. Indeed, seven states that had been especially successful with developing teacher evaluation systems were eligible to apply for a fast-tracked extended renewal through 2018–19. In effect, many states are continuing to negotiate their education policies with the executive branch of the federal government.Although the financial incentives and waivers, combined with tough economic times, help explain why states were willing to take on the thorny problem of teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation, they do not explain why the Obama Administration focused laser-like on teachers.The policy emphasis shift from schools to teachers was driven largely by research findings that began emerging in the mid-2000s—findings that are difficult to dismiss. Numerous studies by different researchers, utilizing data from different states using different tests and in different policy of this research has been by AEFP key findings are the most important school student performance. to the and by more studies that teacher quality for a of the in student performance than other school findings also that teachers have effects on and of their students and productivity among teachers is In a Hanushek that teachers the top of the performance are for about a year and a half of academic gains for their teachers the produce only about a half year in teacher effectiveness within schools is at as large as the between Again, since studies have found in teacher effectiveness within schools that are often than the between studies based on longitudinal data from states the teacher do not represent teacher quality percent of a school is for and academic and heavily in teacher and higher has but research the are not as strong as For teachers over their first years of the to to out by about year In short, the findings suggest that we have traditionally a large part of our instructional dollars on or that to have little on student performance as traditionally and findings policy If teachers are the of large in student we to teachers. are the making the most in The large in productivity among teachers an that doing much is, are not as traditional human capital policies in education to if the is as large as the between schools, basing policies on performance will much of the in by the policy initiatives described a strong emphasis on teacher performance between and 2012, more than states legislation annual of teachers, based partly on student test and the to key such as 2012). effects were In 2007 in for percent of teachers in their third year of in 2012, this to percent In the last few years, of states have changed These changes are in a large by the Education of the are also in the in brought that protected teachers from and thereby students’ state to an equal The were heavily based on research findings about teacher The found the research and ruled for the A case is making its way through the in has also about ways to develop both through programs and in this area is and often For a random of for school teachers, a target that we might would be likely to from no on teacher or student 2011). States, and began in to link effectiveness to programs for both accountability and By 2014, states teacher performance data of with their teacher is on both what as well as to for research is in the or of and associated a A recent review by National for of Education found that, there is teacher programs are important for teacher effectiveness in the more research is needed to their In the what is is that some teachers are more than and are to develop more of teacher effectiveness using of the last decade of education reform in the United States has led to agreement among policy on at two reform and academic standards. and what is taught are both The focus on teachers was we are with what in the standards (i.e., the and performance that NCLB required standards, but as by the were states. In addition, the accountability provisions in NCLB presented States were their standards and the public and the federal government a or for their Changer this problem by to establish national standards in and for State Standards that are with international are the of reform. At a they the basis for state policies and state accountability policies. they would have little President of the State Board of it we from the of state standards academic standards so do policies to student and school accountability. many other policies be and including state instructional and college teacher and other the federal government could not establish national standards for the states, but it did their by points to states that standards in the to the and by favored in for states that the National Association and the of State had led the of the standards in and control their with a to the of the standards but support from the and was large and The provided support and over in financial support to help states work on standards. The also to political support for the standards by to key institutional the political including teacher the of and the National Education the U.S. of and political on the right and and influential state the federal government did not financial support for the of national standards, it did support the of for states to 2011, states and the District of Columbia had the standards, and did so states did The however, is a target as is in at a handful of states that are to or the standards. The to teachers of the has also as well as the to to be is the federal control in is seen as an by the federal government that is likely to lead to greater federal control over instructional and the of individual student the teachers and their about for teacher a the standards in the those of most states. is a may an even in teacher effectiveness than we currently In addition, to be teacher and instructional are not fully in The of has for a on and its in has support for the such as the passed a in the in its and it as an effort by a of are for the are for the will all this are we and what we will be the for education quality and education and eventually for increased national economic and national social and economic the last two or the role of the executive branch of the federal government in education policy making increased political under the leadership of George W. George W. and have to this in ways the of national education standards and a national system for educational accountability, even the U.S. such to the states. At a the of the federal and state levels of government are currently in in and and will take in to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the Congress where many recent policies, such as annual student as an by the federal executive branch that be that affect the governance of education in the United States serious and is at AEFP could a number of research associated with the political economy of U.S. education and in ways to the and on education governance would in focus and from much of our and important work evaluating education practices and policies, but it would this It would help us the dynamics of reform in the United economy in the of a policy research and they for analysis and of come to The first three focus on what we might call the political economy of education information the education policy and policy These are especially key as education policies have shifted from education policies to policies using relatively performance The on the role of to what and in what ways, information about the of education performance affect policy findings about different to student performance (e.g., teacher policies, policies, and graduation more or less or influential in different ways, at the state, and local policy In what ways do of information and to that information states with different political or economic to what extent do standards and performance information state and local spur through competition and another there an of that, under strong information to education To what extent do political leaders to performance information in ways that might affect its to the what are the and that for education reforms at different levels of government and different what are the of different going The role of is among the most to are a major political at the national and state policy and a policies at the local level through collective are but have in important areas of education policy are the most important school input affecting student performance. are in the difficult of the of all their it is increasingly that some teachers are much more than from on an earlier were

Loy D. Lytle, William Kops, Christopher B. Seaman

This is the second paper drawn from a two-phase study aimed at (1) determining how summer sessions are organized and administered at AUSS, NAASS, NCCSS, and WASSA member institutions to better understand the range and diversity of essential summer session functions performed and (2) examining whether these administrative/organizational differences affect performance-based outcomes important to the success of the summer term. The first phase of the study (Kops & Lytle, 2013) reported that the organization and administration of summer session functions—assessed by a 38-item survey returned by 115 member institutions—fell along a centralized/decentralized continuum characterized as highly centralized (all or most functions performed by a single summer session office), hybridized (some functions performed by a summer sessions office while others are devolved to campus units/departments), or decentralized (most functions performed by campus units/departments other than summer session). This paper reports on the total 134 member institutions that completed the 38-item survey. As well, it reports on the findings of an outcomes questionnaire sent to all survey respondents to explore the possible extent to which differences in summer session organizational structures affected selected student-based (unduplicated headcount and credit hours) and finance-based (tuition revenue and instruction-related expenses incurred in teaching courses) performance outcomes in the summer 2012 term. The 38-item survey instrument proved sensitive to how functions important for the summer term are managed and performed at the colleges and universities participating in the study. Although the organizational structure of summer sessions varied significantly among survey respondents, with private institutions somewhat more centralized than publicly funded ones, the results of the outcomes questionnaire indicated that the organizational structure had no significant effect on student-based or finance-based performance outcomes.

William R. Doyle, Michael K. McLendon, James C. Hearn

No abstract is available for this record.

Dick M. Carpenter, Scott L. Noller

In an era of increased accountability and challenging times for public finance, charter schools built on decentralization, grassroots accountability, and market forces may provide, in the spirit of "educational laboratories," lessons for increasing student achievement more efficiently through diverse and innovative management, organization, structures, and operations. Using stochastic frontier analysis, this study put that proposition to the test and found limited difference in technical efficiency, favoring noncharter public schools over charters.

Innocent Buberwa Rugambuka

ABSTRACT\nA students’ Loan scheme is one among many alternatives for financing higher education in various countries around the world. Tanzania is one of the countries that have been practicing loan scheme system for financing higher education sub-sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of the students’ loan scheme in Tanzania basing on the views of the stakeholders, mostly higher education students who are the main beneficiaries of the scheme.\n\nSome university students at the University of Dar es Salaam, the policy makers and policy implementers in the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology and the Higher Education Student Loan Board respectively, were identified for the study. The study was guided by two research questions. These are: what is the performance of higher education student loan scheme in terms of the procedures for loan application and money disbursement; and does the student loan scheme contain the structures for loan recovery to the extent of being able to recover the loan?\n\nA qualitative strategy has been used in this study. Multiple methods were used for data collection, namely semi-structured interview, group discussion and documentary analysis. Twelve students of different academic years of study and student leaders at the student organization level, two policy makers and two policy implementers were interviewed. Twenty students were involved in a focused group discussion. And various documents including policy documents, guidelines and website documents were analyzed. Data collected was analyzed by induction process.\n\nThe findings show that the loan scheme in Tanzania is partly not performing well in terms of application procedures, disbursement of funds to students and loan recovery. Therefore to make the loan scheme perform at the convenience of the stakeholders, it is recommended that the government should decentralize the HESLB to district level (establish the district offices). By doing so some services such as distribution and collection of loan application forms and means-testing can be done at the district offices. In addition, it is recommended that the loan application forms can also be stationed at Advanced Secondary Schools to make it easy for the applicants to access them as most of the applicants are students from these schools.

Catalina Laserna, Henry Leitner

faculty instructional time is a critical resource at all universities, but particularly in a major research institution like Harvard. Operating on the periphery of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s division of Continuing Education is often at a disadvantage when attempting to recruit senior faculty. However, through its distance education program and its innovative use of technology, the Harvard University Extension School has been able to offer online some of the finest courses taught to the residential Harvard College students without making extraordinary demands on faculty. as a direct consequence the school is being repositioned from a peripheral role as Harvard's “evening school” for local area adults to one that is available 24/7 to a growing population of enthusiastic students around the world. as the program matures, it has gained visibility and high regard by a growing number of senior faculty and by the central administration. This paper describes how Harvard Extension School’s distance education model has evolved over the past ten years using the innovation life cycle methodology1, and illustrates how case studies inform the development of the program. ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 163 InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT Harvard University is decentralized, with authority distributed among the central administration and the 14 schools that comprise it. the president and provost are at the administrative core of the university, and if there is one unit that is its academic core, it would be the faculty of arts and sciences (FAS), which includes Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and the division of Continuing Education (dCE), of which the extension school is a part. the degree of decentralization ensures a certain measure of independence on the part of the different schools; at the same time, for smaller units like DCe, it can mean operating on the margins of the parent institution. However, every unit of a major research university such as Harvard is mindful of its responsibility to maintain the school’s values in everything that it does, and a commitment to academic excellence is of primary importance. Established a century ago as an “experiment in popular education,” the Extension School was charged with using its resources to benefit the local Boston-area community by making it possible for nontraditional students to receive a liberal education. By maintaining a policy of open enrollment and affordable tuition, the extension school has remained faithful to President Lowell’s original vision. For the most part, the Extension School has reflected the orientation of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering courses primarily in the liberal arts. Comparatively recently, the school has introduced professional courses in disciplines such as computer science, management, environmental management, educational technology, and journalism in order to respond to student demand. With the advent of distance education technologies, the scope of President Lowell’s vision has been extended to include a global audience. DISTANCE EDUCATION AT HARVARD EXTENSION Although invited to do so, Harvard University did not take part in the higher-ed “dot-com” revolution of the 1990s in a meaningful way, at least not on a broad institutional level.2 This is perhaps due to both Harvard’s decentralized structure in which individual schools decide what works for them, and the fact that faculty are highly autonomous with respect to their teaching responsibilities. By the same token, individual units have a certain freedom to experiment with technology provided that they stay within their own budgets and do no harm to the Harvard brand. 164 ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 Harvard dCE’s mission contains a commitment to “experimenting and innovating with courses and teaching techniques that enhance the learning of non-traditional students.” Within dCE, the Harvard Extension School in particular has a tradition of embracing technology not only to improve and to complement the learning process, but also to make possible the delivery of its courses to what we today call “distance students.” Such efforts began in the 1950s, when the Extension School offered courses via educational radio and television, and continued in the 1960s when courses were presented via kinescope to US navy personnel on board Polaris submarines. During the fall semester of 1997, the extension school carried out a controlled experiment in which a computer science course—“Communication Protocols and Internet Architectures”—was offered to both local and geographically distant students who were unable to attend lectures in person.3 The format of that course remains as the template for the majority of courses offered since that time: the instructor’s lectures are recorded and digitized, and relevant materials (blackboard illustrations, slides, in-class video, etc.) are integrated with streaming audio and video for on-demand access through a web browser. An example from the “Communication Protocols” course is shown below; the PowerPoint slides on the right-hand side are synchronized with the audio/video presentation that appears on the left. InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 165 Building on this initial success, courses offered during the next five years (1997-2002) were primarily in computer science for the following reasons: broadband Internet bandwidth was extremely limited; our production and delivery infrastructure was crude and occasionally unreliable; and the computer science student pool, comprised mainly of experienced hardware and software engineers, could provide much of its own technical support and was accustomed to receiving feedback via email. Within a relatively short period, the distance education operation attracted attention. in 1999, a technology writer for the Boston Globe wrote favorably about the Extension School’s early efforts in a feature story, “Plugging in to the Electronic Campus.”4 internally, the central administration, through the Office of the Provost, funded a study co-conducted by one of the authors that centered on two questions: How fast should the program grow? in what ways was online education transforming teaching and learning at the Extension School? Evaluation results showed clearly that faculty and students received the program well, and the growing percentage of students who were participating exclusively online proved that Extension school students were becoming comfortable with teaching and learning in virtual environments. The report helped sharpen the vision for a multi-year process of strengthening the distance program by recommending that DCe focus on pedagogy and evaluation research, as well as continue to develop student-centered tools to enhance the online learning experience.5 By 2003, the production process had become more sophisticated, as professional videographers replaced part-time student help, and the production and delivery platforms were reengineered to become stable enough to permit scaling up. Administratively, the school developed a system for online course evaluations and a method for compiling distance education student demographics through online surveys. By that point, dCE was prepared to invest heavily in infrastructure and personnel. renovated space created a professional environment for production, research and development, and allowed for staff expansion. Between 2004 and 2007, these investments paid off in the form of a rapid increase in the number of online courses offered: InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE 166 ContinUing HigHer eDUCation review, Vol. 72, 2008 InnOVATInG AT THE PErIPHErY TO EXTEnd HArVArd'S COrE THE HARVARD COLLEGE DISTANCE EDUCATION INITIATIVE As the IT production and delivery infrastructures became stable and sophisticated, and we learned that students and faculty were satisfied, the challenge was to attract more of Harvard’s senior faculty to take advantage of our increased capacity. Over the years, various Harvard College faculty had expressed interest in teaching for the extension school, but many felt that they could not afford the time to teach an additional course in the evening. In a brainstorming conversation we came up with a simple solution to this seemingly intractable problem: If Harvard faculty did not have the time to come to us, could we go to them? in other words, could the same course that was offered during the day to Harvard College undergraduates be offered simultaneously online to extension school students? to test this idea we sought a suitable faculty member, i.e., someone who was tenured, well-respected, and interested in expanding his teaching to new audiences using digital technologies.6 in the fall, 2000, Professor H. t. Kung, the william gates Professor of Computer science and electrical Engineering, agreed to offer his CS-143 course, “Computer networks,” to an online extension school audience. as a world-renowned authority on computer networks, Prof. Kung had been experimenting with distributed 1998-99

Lanlin Zhang

Since the endorsement of a socialist market economy in 1992 in the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, self-financing and fee-charging principles have been widely adopted, and finally legitimized in China's higher education system. However, refonns in China's post secondary education, mainly privatization and tuition fee hikes, have produced some serious controversies and concerns among students, parents, and international education researchers. This article delves into the issues of post secondary education refonn in China and brings into attention problems that occur when policies are institutionalized in a centralized decentralization setting. Depuis l'adhesion a une economie de marche socialiste au 14e Congres national du Parti communiste chinois, les principes d'autofmance et de privatisation ont ete adoptes partout, et finalement legitime dans le systeme d'education tertiaire en Chine. Neanmoins, les refonnes dans le systeme d'etude post-secondaire chinois, surtout dans la privatisation et dans la hausse des frais de scolarite, ont provoque de serieuses controverses et des soucis chez les etudiants, parents, et chercheurs intemationaux sur l'enseignement. Cet article etudie les problemes de reforme au niveau post-secondaire en Chine et attire l'attention sur les problemes qui surviennent lorsque les politiques se font institutionnalisees dans un milieu de decentralisation centralisee.

Martin R. West, Ludger Wöβmann

No abstract is available for this record.

Wang Xin

This policy review examines major government policies and reforms regarding higher education development in three distinct periods, and analyzes their impact on financing higher education in China. The analysis reveals that with the expansion of enrollments, declining funding from central government, increasing demand for greater quality and efficiency, and ascendance of market orientations and solutions, a new mechanism of administration and financing has emerged to adapt Chinese colleges and universities to change. The study describes four trends in higher education financing in China: (1) decentralization - shifting financing higher education from state government to provincial governments; (2) diversification of financing - supporting higher education with income from university enterprises, contract training for enterprises, contract research and consultancy, and donations and endowments; (3) cost sharing - sharing cost of higher education with students, parents, and other social sectors; and (4) optimization - increasing efficiency through consolidations and mergers among institutions. These reform attempts are parallel to the worldwide trends in the financing of higher education described by Johnstone. Results show that the financing mechanism of higher education has evolved to meet demands imposed by the changing political and social environment.

David Honeyman, James L. Wattenbarger, Kathleen C. Westbrook

Preface - David S Honeyman, James C Wattenbarger, and Kathleen C Westbrook The Financing of Higher Education - David S Honeyman and Megan Bruhn The Value of Investments in Higher Education - Terry G Geske Capturing the Full Returns State Funding Formulas - Mary P McKeown Promise Fulfilled? Accountability and Quality Evaluation in Higher Education - John V Lombardi and Elizabeth D Capaldi Issues in Benefits and Retirements in Higher Education - Jay L Chronister America's Investment in the Research Enterprise - Karen A Holbrook The Academic Niche Responsibility-Centred Management - Edward L Whalen An Approach to Decentralized Financial Operations Funding Public Education with a State Lottery - Susan Robinson Summers Is Education the Winner? Funding for Community Colleges - Dale F Cambell,Karen Sayles, Lynn Leverty Changing Patterns of Support Funding the Multipurpose Community College in an Era of Consolidation - James C Palmer Competition for Limited Resources - Richard L Alfred Realities, Prospects, and Strategies

Lester D. Horrigan

A study of extra-curricular financing in the larger secondary schools of South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota was undertaken with six objectives in view: (1) to find how funds are raised to finance the extra-curricular program, ( 2) to find how these funds are apportioned and who has charge of this apportionment, (3) to find whether a decentralized or centralized method of handling these funds is used, (4) to find, if finances are handled by a centralized plan, who the finance officer is, and what his duties are as finance officer, (5) to present a plan, for purpose of example, with which the writer has experience as finance officer of Brookings High School, (6) to conclude, with the general objective in view, that presenting this information and data which would be of value to anyone initiating a centralized finance plan for extracurricular activities and student organizations.