Charter schools offer something that public school systems, parents, and teachers need: a way to experiment with alternative ways of teaching, motivating students, organizing schools, using technology, and employing teachers. While people came down on both sides of support for or against charter schools, everyone was surprised by how difficult it was to assess charter school performance. The first part of this book focuses on how to improve estimates of charter schools' performance, especi...

An essential history of the modern research universityWhen universities began in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory IX described them as "wisdom's special workshop." He could not have foreseen how far these institutions would travel and develop. Tracing the eight-hundred-year evolution of the elite research university from its roots in medieval Europe to its remarkable incarnation today, Wisdom's Workshop places this durable institution in sweeping historical p...

Founded in 1959, York University is now the second largest university in Ontario and third largest university in Canada. However, starting in 1970s the success of the university was far from guaranteed.Leading the Modern University documents the challenges and solutions that five successive university presidents (H. Ian Macdonald, Harry Arthurs, Susan Mann, Lorna Marsden, and Mamdouh Shoukri) encountered from the very early 1970s up to 2014. This book is the rare occurrenc...

At a time in American history when football ruled the American campus and fraternities dominated student life, Frank Aydelotte, through his determination to specialize exclusively in initiating an Honors program of study, accomplished a feat virtually unknown in American higher education. That is, he succeeded in shaping one regional, run of the mill, Quaker school - Swarthmore College - into an intellectually-charged, academically-focused institution able to command national respectabilit...

East Carolina University was founded by the State of North Carolina in 1907 as a teacher training school meant to provide professionally trained faculty for schools in the eastern part of the state. Within two decades, the school matured into a teacher's college. Although coeducational from the start, the vast majority of the student body early on was female. Following World War II and the gender transformation of higher education resulting from successive GI Bills, East Carolina emerged w...

130 years after its opening, the once small agricultural college has become Virginia's largest university- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.When Charles Minor opened the doors of his new land-grant institution in late 1872, there were only 29 students, 3 faculty members, and a single building in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. From the humble beginning of donated livestock, seeds, machinery, and books, the university now known as Virginia Tech ...

This volume deals with innovative developments of many different kinds in the local school systems in the years up to 1970. Information was obtained from a sampling of school boards, including the largest. The major purpose is to show what may be expected from an educational organization that gives local authorities a certain amount of leeway to depart from standard procedures. Innovations in teaching, curricular experimentation, changes in the structure and use of school buildings, and th...

Since Wycliffe College was founded 100 years ago as an Anglican theological college in Toronto, it has had six principals. To celebrate the influence they and the college have had on the religious life of Canada and other countries, six writers have collaborated to produce The Enduring Word.The lives of the five past principals have been written by Jacob Jocz, T.R. Millman, R.K. Harrison, Alan Hayes, and Robert Finch. Arnold Edinborough's profile of the present principal, Dr Regina...

In 1837, the people of Guyandotte, then a village on the Virginia frontier, resolved to open a school for their sons and daughters. Tradition says local lawyer John Laidley convinced his neighbors to name the school for his friend, Chief Justice John Marshall. The one-room log cabin that housed those first students soon gave way to a two-story brick building that, with various additions over the years, became the school's Old Main. For decades, the cherished landmark has stood like a proud...

Hampton University is situated on an arm of Hampton Roads, two miles from Fort Monroe. Founded under the leadership of Brig. Gen. Samuel Armstrong in 1868 and incorporated in 1870 as Hampton Normal & Agricultural Institute, it was the first permanent school for freedmen in the South. Industrial and normal education through self-help was the fundamental principle of the school; trades and industries were taught and practiced. Among the university's noteworthy alumni are Dr. Booker T. Washin...

The University of Arkansas has a celebrated history that includes not only winning athletic teams, but also academic successes.While most people immediately think of the Razorbacks in association with the University of Arkansas, the state's flagship educational institution has so much more to offer. First established in 1871 in Fayetteville, located in the scenic Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas, the first permanent building on campus, Old Main, is also the mo...

Experience the University of Florida football program's fascinating 20th century journey, one that has brought enjoyment to millions and national recognition to the school.The University of Florida, the state's oldest and largest university, is recognized today as one of the country's most academically diverse public institutions. Though able to trace its history to 1853, the school did not begin its popular football program until the first few years of the 20th ce...