A Veteran's View of Science Education Today

Science education in our schools is fundamentally the same today as it was fifty years ago and the scientific method has not really changed. Good science teaching is defined as the never‐ending search for evidence, for objective data, which leads to truth, and the search for truth should be at the heart of education in all subjects at all levels, and teacher training should address this objective view point. Science in our schools is watered down with derivatives such as environmental education. Steps should be taken to increase the level of science content knowledge in schools and science teacher education. Additionally, the rules of the open market should be invoked to give science teachers the latitude to offer their services as other providers of professional services do, and receive compensation greater than they would as regular full‐time teachers. These issues are discussed with implications for policy.     

Investing in Individuals for Independence

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are tax‐protected, matched savings accounts designed to help those with low incomes and few assets buy a home, capitalize a business, or fund higher education. Originally authorized through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), IDAs are designed, implemented, and evaluated through public‐private partnerships. In January 2003 over 500 IDA programs had been created, with more than 10,000 low‐income individuals making contributions. This paper outlines the rationale for IDA as an asset building strategy for the poor, describes the design and operation of IDAs, and provides results of early program evaluations. It concludes by arguing that IDAs are a smart practice that can and should be expanded.     

Public participation and the concept of space in environmental governance: An application of PPGIS

Citizen participation ought to be important in environmental governance. However, environmental issues are usually defined as science‐related ones, wherein expert knowledge is more important than the opinions, demands or needs of citizens. On the other hand, environmental issues involve spatial dimensions, the geographic characteristics of which require specific techniques to analyse. PPGIS is applied to study An‐Shun, the site of a well‐known pollution case in Taiwan, to reveal, through a participatory process, the perception of space of citizens of a nearby community. The results of this study suggest that the government needs to ensure more citizen participation in its future plans for the decontamination and renovation of the An‐Shun site. Lay knowledge or citizen perceptions of space should not replace scientific knowledge, but can supplement it. They are additional views that ought to be considered by government agencies in dealing with environmental issues. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Systemic Reform: Good Educational Practice with Positive Impacts and Unresolved Problems and Issues

This article describes the National Science Foundation's systemic reform programming, including major accomplishments and barriers to systemic reform. The challenges of systemic reform and new directions for education reform are discussed. The focus in on the results and challenges of policies implemented by the systemic initiatives, namely the mandate for the alignment of standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment with the implementation of a standards‐based K‐12 mathematics and science education program; increased science and mathematics requirements for high school graduation; the delivery of intensive, high‐quality professional development; and improvement in student achievement after three years of funding. A broader view of education reform in the future will require policymakers and educators to pay more attention to formulating mutually supportive policies across education, health, and social services; establishing fiscal policies that provide sufficient funding to ensure equitable outcomes; and revising accountability policies to facilitate rather than impede the reform efforts.     

POLICY EVALUATION. DEMOCRATIC THEORY. AND THE DIVISION OF SCHOLARLY LABOR

The implicit priorities of political science have been inhospitable to policy evaluation as a scholarly endeavor. Political science, at least as practiced in the West, draws from a philosophic tradition that views political life, and especially democratic political life, as a public objective, not principally as instrumental for other social ends. Comparative policy analysis deviated from that tradition by treating political conditions as independent variables. Policy evaluation, which assesses the social consequences of governmental actions, deviated even further, adopting an explicitly and totally instrumental approach. The argument ofthis essay is that the tactics of policy evaluation should be adopted for assessing the impact of policy patterns on democratic institutions and citizenship. This recommendation flows from a diagnosis of the division of labor in policy evaluation and an identification of the optimum entry points for political science.     

The Impact of Incentives to Recruit and Retain Teachers in “Hard‐to‐Staff” Subjects

We investigate the effects of a statewide program designed to increase the supply of teachers in designated “hard‐to‐staff” areas, such as special education, math, and science. Employing a difference‐in‐difference estimator we find that the loan forgiveness component of the program was effective, reducing mean attrition rates for middle and high school math and science teachers by 10.4 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. We also find that the impact of loan forgiveness varied with the generosity of payments; when fully funded, the program reduced attrition of special education teachers by 12.3 percent, but did not have a statistically significant impact when funding was substantially reduced. A triple‐difference estimate indicates that a one‐time bonus program also had large effects, reducing the likelihood of teachers’ exit by as much as 32 percent in the short run. A back‐of‐the‐envelope cost‐benefit analysis suggests that both the loan forgiveness and the bonus program were cost effective.     

Political Science Research Internships and Political Science Education

This article reports on the evaluation of political science research internships and considers their costs and benefits for a political science education. Students indicated high levels of appreciation of the inaugural Political Science Research Internship Unit at the University of Western Australia in terms of its contribution to their personal development and work experience. A substantial number of interns gained insights into the policy process through this form of experiential learning. Many came to appreciate the contingency and the normative dimensions of knowledge in the policy process. Whereas about half of the students found the transition from the seminar room to the policy world difficult, the other half were more successful in applying their theoretical knowledge to practical experiences. The article also indicates how this evaluation informs future course design.     

运用移动互联网开展反腐倡廉教育

我国的移动互联网时代已经到来，反腐倡廉教育要主动融入时代潮流，积极运用现代科技，不断创新路径与方法。应根据移动互联网的实体性特点，开展个性化的教育；根据移动互联网的实时性特点，开展即时化的教育；根据移动互联网的开放性特点，开展互动化的教育；根据移动互联网的粘合性特点，开展增值化的教育。要充分发挥移动互联网在反腐倡廉教育中的重要作用，需要大力提高对移动互联网运用的重视程度，强化组织推进；需要加强资源整合，形成整体合力；需要完善监控机制，注重效果实现。     

论高等教育评估中的顾客满意度测量

通过对高校现有评估方式存在缺陷的分析,提出在高等教育大众化的今天,高等教育要突出质量意识和服务意识,进而提出高等教育评估中应该引入顾客满意度测量,并对顾客满意度的基本理论模型进行了阐述。通过对国外高等教育评估中应用顾客满意度测量技术的概况评述,指出了顾客满意度测量在我国高校评估中应用的意义;最后提出在我国高等教育评估中应用顾客满意度指数模型的建议。     

Stakeholder partnerships as collaborative policymaking: Evaluation criteria applied to watershed management in California and Washington

Public policymaking and implementation in the United States are increasingly handled through local, consensus‐seeking partnerships involving most affected stakeholders. This paper formalizes the concept of a stakeholder partnership, and proposes techniques for using interviews, surveys, and documents to measure each of six evaluation criteria. Then the criteria are applied to 44 watershed partnerships in California and Washington. The data suggest that each criterion makes a unique contribution to the overall evaluation, and together the criteria reflect a range of partnership goals—both short‐term and long‐term, substantive and instrumental. Success takes time—frequently about 48 months to achieve major milestones, such as formal agreements and implementation of restoration, education, or monitoring projects. Stakeholders perceive that their partnerships have been most effective at addressing local problems and at addressing serious problems—not just uncontroversial issues, as previously hypothesized. On the other hand, they perceive that partnerships have occasionally aggravated problems involving the economy, regulation, and threats to property rights. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Science Education Policy: A Symposium

This article introduces Science Education Policy: A Symposium. The symposium examines trends and issues from the vantage points of individuals from a variety of backgrounds who are concerned with science education in the US. Although optimistic, most of the contributors to this symposium agree that considerable research and evaluation is still needed before we can make informed policy decisions that would have a lasting impact on science education. The expected outcome of the symposium is to stimulate discussions among educators and policymakers.     

Financial inclusion,banking the unbanked: Concepts,issues, and policies for India

We use the data from World Bank Global Findex for the year 2011 , 2014 and 2017 to understand financial inclusion in India, at the same time we compare India's situation with the other BRICS nations. We fathom the fact that financial inclusion is definitely the way forward for an economy to achieve inclusive growth. Financial inclusion is just not an economic concept rather it is termed as a socio‐economic concept, as it helps people have a security for future life through access to education and health facility, a secure future and better standard of living. In India we see the barriers to inclusion are predominately caused by voluntary exclusion, and though policies will help to reach out but the ultimate goal of financial inclusion could be only achieved through improving awareness and financial literacy in India. Thus financial inclusion should be backed by financial literacy to get the best results.     

Some aspects of science-based technological promotion

Scientific research car for scientific purposes. As such, scientific research will necessarily be evaluate scientific terms. However, scientific research can also be supported for such nonscientific purposes as economic development, industrialization, education, etc. In that case, evaluation of scientific research will be based on economic, educational, etc., yardsticks. This paper attempts to seek evaluation criteria for the public support of science for the purposes of technological promotion. Such a public investment is shown to be a risky process. The “riskiness” of the process is discussed within the framework of a model of science-based technology and expressed in stochastic terms. A decision-making framework is then developed on the basis of expected utility hypotheses.     

Science and Technology for What?

In 1939 American scholar Robert S. Lynd first published his classic book Knowledge for What? ( Lynd, 1948 ). It provided statements on the requirement for social science knowledge to serve policymaking. This paper addresses the requirement for science and technology education policy to undergo changes dictated by the 21st‐century environment. It also identifies the inseparable links between political governance and educational policymaking. Views of 50 global professionals were solicited for their answers to the fundamental question: Science and technology for what? Experience of the respondents was in science, technology, education, religion, defense, engineering, space, business, and government. This paper classifies and summarizes those responses, then provides the author's analysis and conclusion that humanity has reached the point in history where its long‐term future is doubtful if both policymaking and education fail to formally conclude that the answer to the question, Science and technology for what? . . . is determined to be: Global humanity. The paper, therefore, is more concerned with the strategic answers to the meta question of Science and technology for what? than the precise answers for individual science disciplines. The paper data‐reduces focus group responses into 18 categories ( Figure 1 ), and provides only illustrative discrete uses of what education for science and technology within those categories should do. The reader will grasp the complexities of moving from strategic decisions to changes within the disciplines of science and the applications of technology.

Figure 1 Open in figure viewer PowerPoint . What 50 Professionals Think about “Science & Technology for What?”: Challenges for Education Policy     

Did the Egalitarian Reforms of the Swedish Educational System Equalise Levels of Democratic Citizenship?

In the mid‐1990s an extensive reform of the Swedish educational system was initiated in order to create a ‘school for everyone’ intended to function like a ‘social equaliser’. The new unified gymnasium initiated longer educational programmes with an extended curriculum of social science courses. This article examines whether the well documented gap in levels of democratic citizenship indicators between students in theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes persisted after this massive reform. Given the vast amount of empirical research that has shown that education promotes democratic citizenship, the reform could be expected to result in a decreased civic gap. However, contrary to the conventional wisdom in research on the impact of education, little evidence is found linking the initiation of longer educational programmes with more social science courses to an increase in the levels of the examined dimensions of democratic citizenship. The egalitarian reform of the Swedish gymnasium, which provided more civic education, did not produce hypothesised positive effects on any of the dimensions under study (i.e., political participation, political knowledge and political attentiveness). Rather, results support the pre‐adult socialisation models since the gap between citizens from theoretical and vocational gymnasium study programmes remained after the unification of the educational system.     

EVALUATING EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE LESSONS LEARNED

Much energy has been devoted to the evaluation of employment and training programs. Both of these evaluations have often been disappointing both to supporters of the programs and the evaluators themselves. At least in part, the reason for this is that many of the evaluations that have been done have not been carried out very effectively. Guidelines which policymakers should keep in mind in the course of initiating evaluations of employment and training programs are presented. Useful insights in this regard can be obtained by examining evaluation activity in other areas of social policy such as education.     

Globalization, Europeanization, Complexity, and the Future of Scandinavian Exceptionalism

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the Scandinavian countries have been a problem for leftist and rightist visions of global order because, with various adaptations, they have continued to successfully develop on their exceptional path of market openness and social inclusiveness. How can this be explained? From a traditional social‐science perspective, it cannot. However, from a complexity perspective, where there are no rigid hegemonic fundamental human orders such as globalization and Europeanization, nation‐states evolve through complex adaptation with their global surroundings. From this perspective, diversity and exceptionalism—not order—are the norm.     

A critical review of some basic considerations in post-secondary education evaluation

Following on a short review of North American program evaluation experiences in elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, a summary is given of the major problems observed in such evaluation efforts. With this background assessment, the remainder of the paper attempts to specify objectives and criteria that seem appropriate in post-secondary program evaluation in the 1970's. Some attention is devoted to problems of implementing changes in efficiency through increasing productivity by a number of alternative strategies. Finally, some tentative suggestions are made as to possible routes to implementing program evaluation in post-secondary education.     

试论青年中医教师的系统培训

振兴和发展中医药事业关键在教育,而教育质量的提高靠教师。文中对青年中医教师的系统培训提出要注重师德情操、基础理论、实践技能、写作能力等的培养。     

How Do We Judge Policies?

Political science has paid scant attention to the way that citizens judge public policy, assuming that citizens do so, or should do so, in ways familiar to academics themselves, depending upon which of the various schools of thought they endorse. This paper argues that approaching citizens’ judgement realistically requires attention to political psychology. Indeed, our conception of citizen judgement can be enriched by attention to research and theory in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. That work emphasises that much judgement occurs spontaneously and very rapidly, that it is involuntary and non‐semantic and that it depends upon the emotional impact of experience rather than conscious weighing of situations against explicit standards of assessment such as science, self‐interest or moral theory. A moral psychology for public life is sketched out, with implications for judgment by politicians.