The Attainment Agenda

The Attainment Agenda PDF Author: Laura W. Perna
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421414066
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
"While the federal government seeks to promote educational attainment and equity through its extensive investment in student financial aid, states have primary responsibility for policies that affect the educational attainment of their populations. Despite the centrality of state policy, however, we know relatively little about the relationship between state policy and these outcomes. This book addresses this knowledge gap. Drawing on data collected from descriptive case studies of the relationship between public policy and higher education performance in five states (Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, and Washington), this book offers a more complete conceptual framework for understanding how state public policy can promote educational attainment. The resulting framework has five central tenets that help us understanding how to improve overall educational attainment and increase equity in that attainment. At its core, the model assumes that higher education performance is determined by effective state policy leadership for higher education. The book also illustrates the need for state policies that reduce the cumulative negative implications of policies that perpetuate differences in educational outcomes across groups and that proactively address the barriers that limit educational attainment for underachieving groups. This book has important implications for public policymakers, college and university leaders, educational researchers and others who are interested in understanding how public policy can improve educational attainment and equity in attainment across groups"-- Provided by publisher.

Hijacking the Agenda

Hijacking the Agenda PDF Author: Christopher Witko
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610449053
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Why are the economic interests and priorities of lower- and middle-class Americans so often ignored by the U.S. Congress, while the economic interests of the wealthiest are prioritized, often resulting in policies favorable to their interests? In Hijacking the Agenda, political scientists Christopher Witko, Jana Morgan, Nathan J. Kelly, and Peter K. Enns examine why Congress privileges the concerns of businesses and the wealthy over those of average Americans. They go beyond demonstrating that such economic bias exists to illuminate precisely how and why economic policy is so often skewed in favor of the rich. The authors analyze over 20 years of floor speeches by several hundred members of Congress to examine the influence of campaign contributions on how the national economic agenda is set in Congress. They find that legislators who received more money from business and professional associations were more likely to discuss the deficit and other upper-class priorities, while those who received more money from unions were more likely to discuss issues important to lower- and middle-class constituents, such as economic inequality and wages. This attention imbalance matters because issues discussed in Congress receive more direct legislative action, such as bill introductions and committee hearings. While unions use campaign contributions to push back against wealthy interests, spending by the wealthy dwarfs that of unions. The authors use case studies analyzing financial regulation and the minimum wage to demonstrate how the financial influence of the wealthy enables them to advance their economic agenda. In each case, the authors examine the balance of structural power, or the power that comes from a person or company’s position in the economy, and kinetic power, the power that comes from the ability to mobilize organizational and financial resources in the policy process. The authors show how big business uses its structural power and resources to effect policy change in Congress, as when the financial industry sought deregulation in the late 1990s, resulting in the passage of a bill eviscerating New Deal financial regulations. Likewise, when business interests want to preserve the policy status quo, it uses its power to keep issues off of the agenda, as when inflation eats into the minimum wage and its declining purchasing power leaves low-wage workers in poverty. Although groups representing lower- and middle-class interests, particularly unions, can use their resources to shape policy responses if conditions are right, they lack structural power and suffer significant resource disadvantages. As a result, wealthy interests have the upper hand in shaping the policy process, simply due to their pivotal position in the economy and the resulting perception that policies beneficial to business are beneficial for everyone. Hijacking the Agenda is an illuminating account of the way economic power operates through the congressional agenda and policy process to privilege the interests of the wealthy and marks a major step forward in our understanding of the politics of inequality.

On the Edge of Commitment

On the Edge of Commitment PDF Author: Stephen Lawrence Morgan
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804744195
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book offers a new model of educational achievement to explain why some students are committed to preparation for college.

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan PDF Author: William G. Bowen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178453
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Why and how American colleges and universities need to change in order to meet the nation's pressing needs American higher education faces some serious problems—but they are not the ones most people think. In this brief and accessible book, two leading experts show that many so-called crises—from the idea that typical students are drowning in debt to the belief that tuition increases are being driven by administrative bloat—are exaggerated or simply false. At the same time, many real problems—from the high dropout rate to inefficient faculty staffing—have received far too little attention. In response, William G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson provide a frank assessment of the biggest challenges confronting higher education and propose a bold agenda for reengineering essential elements of the system to meet them. The result promises to help shape the debate about higher education for years to come. Lesson Plan shows that, for all of its accomplishments, higher education today is falling short when it comes to vital national needs. Too many undergraduates are dropping out or taking too long to graduate; minorities and the poor fare worse than their peers, reinforcing inequality; and college is unaffordable for too many. But these problems could be greatly reduced by making significant changes, including targeting federal and state funding more efficiently; allocating less money for "merit aid" and more to match financial need; creating a respected “teaching corps” that would include nontenure faculty; improving basic courses in fields such as math by combining adaptive learning and face-to-face teaching; strengthening leadership; and encouraging more risk taking. It won't be easy for faculty, administrators, trustees, and legislators to make such sweeping changes, but only by doing so will they make it possible for our colleges and universities to meet the nation’s demands tomorrow and into the future.

The Attainment Agenda

The Attainment Agenda PDF Author: Laura W. Perna
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421414074
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
How state leadership determines effective higher education attainment. Although the federal government invests substantial resources into student financial aid, states have the primary responsibility for policies that raise overall higher educational attainment and improve equity across groups. The importance of understanding how states may accomplish these goals has never been greater, as educational attainment is increasingly required for economic and social well-being of individuals and society. Drawing on data collected from case studies of the relationship between public policy and higher education performance in five states—Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Texas, and Washington—The Attainment Agenda offers a framework for understanding how state public policy can effectively promote educational attainment. Laura W. Perna and Joni E. Finney argue that there is no silver bullet to improve higher education attainment. Instead, achieving the required levels of attainment demands a comprehensive approach. State leaders must consider how performance in one area (such as degree completion) is connected to performance in other areas (such as preparation or affordability), how particular policies interact to produce expected and unexpected outcomes, and how policy approaches must be adapted to reflect their particular context. The authors call for greater attention to the state role in providing policy leadership to advance a cohesive public agenda for higher education and adopting public policies that not only increase the demand for and supply of higher education but also level the playing field for higher educational opportunity. The insights offered in The Attainment Agenda have important implications for public policymakers, college and university leaders, and educational researchers interested in ensuring sustained higher education attainment.

Defending the Community College Equity Agenda

Defending the Community College Equity Agenda PDF Author: Thomas W. Bailey
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801884470
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Publisher description.

Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics

Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics PDF Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 008052687X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation ofthe logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logicof Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning isidentified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets,including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlikewhat is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasonerlacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access tocomputational complexity. The practical reasoner is therefore obliged to be acognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerableefficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of variousscarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitivetraits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is thepractical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevantinformation and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies areimpediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense,relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then besaid to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances orcloses some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with aconceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic andpragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek tointegrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A furtherattraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principalconceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expressionin formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics andlabel led deductive systems. Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, beliefdynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics,argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repaystudy by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields.Key features:• relevance • action and agendas • practical reasoning • belief dynamics • non-classical logics • labelled deductive systems

Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education

Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education PDF Author: Ana M. Martínez-Alemán
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421416646
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
An essential guide to incorporating critical research into higher education scholarship. Winner of the Outstanding Publication Award of the Post-secondary Education Division of the American Educational Research Association Critical theory has much to teach us about higher education. By linking critical models, methods, and research tools with an advocacy-driven vision of the central challenges facing postsecondary researchers and staff, Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education makes a significant—and long overdue—contribution to the development of the field. The contributors argue that, far from being overly abstract, critical tools and methods are central to contemporary scholarship and can have practical policy implications when brought to the study of higher education. They argue that critical research design and critical theories help scholars see beyond the normative models and frameworks that have long limited our understanding of students, faculty, institutions, the organization and governance of higher education, and the policies that shape the postsecondary arena. A rigorous and invaluable guide for researchers seeking innovative approaches to higher education and the morass of traditionally functionalist, rational, and neoliberal thinking that mars the field, this book is also essential for instructors who wish to incorporate the lessons of critical scholarship into their course development, curriculum, and pedagogy.

American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century

American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Michael N. Bastedo
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421444410
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
Now in its fifth edition! An indispensable reference for anyone concerned with the future of American colleges and universities. Whether it is advances in information technology, organized social movements, or racial inequality and social class stratification, higher education serves as a lens for examining significant issues within American society. First published in 1998, American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century offers a comprehensive introduction to the complex realities of American higher education, including its history, financing, governance, and relationship with the states and federal government. This thoroughly revised edition brings the classic volume completely up to date. Each chapter has been rewritten to address major recent issues in higher education, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the movement for racial justice, and turmoil in the for-profit sector. Three entirely new chapters cover broad-access colleges, race and racism, and organized social movements. Reflecting on the implications of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity within higher education, the book also grapples with growing concerns about the responsiveness and future of the academy. No other book covers such wide-ranging issues under the broader theme of higher education's relationship to society. Highly acclaimed and incorporating cutting-edge research, American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century is now more useful and engaging than ever. Contributors: Michael N. Bastedo, Philip G. Altbach, Patricia J. Gumport, Peter Riley Bahr, Joy Blanchard, Julia Brickfield, Michael Brown, Katherine S. Cho, Daniela Conde, Charles H. F. Davis III, Hans de Wit, Peter D. Eckel, Martin Finkelstein, Denisa Gándara, Liliana M. Garces, Roger L. Geiger, Leslie D. Gonzales, Jillian Leigh Gross, Jessica Harris, Nicholas Hillman, Julia Rose Karpicz, Robert Kelchen, Adrianna Kezar, Lisa R. Lattuca, Demetri Morgan, Rebecca Natow, Anna Neumann, Audrey Peek, Laura W. Perna, Gary Rhoades, Tykeia N. Robinson, Roman Ruiz, Wonson Ryu, Lauren T. Schudde, Jeffrey C. Sun, David A. Tandberg

Sustainable Development Goals: A Handbook Based on Media Perspective

Sustainable Development Goals: A Handbook Based on Media Perspective PDF Author: Noveena Chakravorty
Publisher: Sayak Pal
ISBN: 819634029X
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Promoting sustainable living across seventeen essential areas throughout the planet has been the agenda that was adopted in 2015 by the United Nations with a deadline of 2030. After nine years into the future since 2015, most nations still need to gear up to their full potential to fulfill the targeted development. Although the United Nations has been publishing its annual SGD progress reports since 2016, along with a list of portals where the parameters can be measured for individual nations for each one of the seventeen goals, the perspective of researchers, and practitioners provides a unique perspective on the progression. Despite the rigorous attempts from the United Nations, regulatory authorities, and government initiatives, the gap remains, and the fulfillment of the targets for all seventeen goals till the end of 2023 remains uncertain. The book “Sustainable Development Goals: A Handbook Based on Media Perspective” offers a collection of concepts and perspectives on areas like effective administration, media advocacy, digital literacy, responsible usage, integrating inventory management, greening efforts, digital citizenship, revival of tribal culture, green products, sustainable urbanization, pastors as social media influencers for sustainable development, agrarian sustainability, programs on sustainability, influencers of sustainability, social media activism, women’s health, representation & empowerment, sustainability in films and entertainment, sustainable living, mindful consumption, climate advocacy, public awareness, waste management, sustainable communication, green practices, environment-friendly technology, multiculturalism, environmental communication, democratic governance, health communication and many more. Collectively, the chapters would help in understanding the different perspectives of sustainability through the lens of media and communication.