Energy management systems (EMS) have been demonstrating their value for more than 45 years. Managers in facilities ranging from small, single buildings to multi-million square foot complexes have cut energy and maintenance costs through use of the systems. Energy management systems represent a…

Three major factors drive the need to renovate HVAC/plumbing systems: the condition of the existing system, how well the system complies with code requirements and how well the system meets needs of building occupants. Other factors, such as the need to reduce energy and water use, contribute to the…

There is growing empirical support that nutrition has an important role to play in attention/concentration and in learning. The balance between noradrenalin and serotonin is critical to mood, attention and behavior and that the food we consume is an important factor in maintaining this balance. Food…

An increasing number of students require specialized health care procedures during school hours. Procedures such as tube feedings, clean intermittent catheterization, suctioning, and ventilator management are becoming more commonplace in the school setting. Who performs the procedures and is…

A major focus of the current mathematics and science education reforms is on developing "literacy;" that is, helping students to understand and use the languages and ideas of mathematics and science in reasoning, communicating, and solving problems. In many ways, these standards documents are far…

The following discussion is based on a study of curriculum upgrading by states, districts, and schools in response to these calls for reform. We have studied a relatively specific school output: the nature and quality of the mathematics and science curriculum as offered by teachers and experienced…

In 1991, Jonathan Kozol published Savage Inequalities, a book that dramatically made public what most people who visit schools have always known - that American children experience shockingly different conditions of schooling. These differences are even more likely to be exacerbated in science…

The findings from a new survey indicate that teacher perspectives are similar for both general and special educators and that administrators' views are also parallel. The similarities across special and general education groups combined with the significant differences between all teacher and all…

The future aims of learners of English vary widely. For some they may be clearly defined. They may want to study in an English-speaking environment, or to keep up to date with what's in the English-speaking press, or to get by on holiday in an English-speaking country, or to conduct business…

You have now explored in a practical way a number of different aspects of language and learning, including the difference between implicit and explicit knowledge of rules, rule discovery, the grammar of spoken and written English, phonology, and linguistic and communicative competence. I now want to…

We learned that native speakers have an implicit knowledge of grammar and that children acquire this without realizing it. I commented, however, that a language teacher needs to be able to describe grammatical rules, and in Unit 2 you noted some grammatical differences between spoken and written…

The word revolution has often been used in connection with the arrival of the new theory of language. However, we now need to look beyond how babies acquire the mechanics of a language in order to understand language use. So, it is to language in action that we turn in this unit, and, in particular,…

Have you ever asked yourself: - how babies learn language and how that's different from learning a foreign language - how easy or difficult it is to teach English as a foreign language - how a language teacher comes to grips with finding out and explaining language rules - how to…

Borrowing by students and parents to pay for college has been one of the most commonly discussed and debated issues of national policy over the last two decades. Concerns about steadily increasing borrowing levels, have prompted a variety of policy proposals to ease the burden of college borrowing.…

The current reform movement in the United States began in the 1990s and has manifested itself as a standards movement. It is a movement to establish state and national frameworks, to which local school districts are encouraged to link their efforts to implement local standards. The linchpin that…

Today, it is no secret that our colleges and universities are beset by an array of problems, new to most of us: chronic shortages of funds, coupled with soaring fees and public resistance to higher taxes; new skepticism from members of the "attentive public" about our productivity, accompanied by…

Some strategic issues will shape the university's future for the next decade. Indeed, all of higher education will be changed in the next ten years by the developments we have in mind. Among these strategic concerns, two appear to be the most important. The first is resource availability and…

Educational finance monopoly is the radical alternative to parental freedom in education. These are opposite educational funding methods. They have to do entirely with this question: if there are tax dollars devoted to education to achieve a public good, how are those dollars actually assigned to…

At a time when Americans view improving the quality of education as the most pressing issue confronting the nation, an overwhelming majority of the public considers improving the quality of teaching as the most important way to improve public education. A landmark national opinion poll shows the…

New and richer flows of data from organizations in the public space could enrich democracy and might improve effectiveness and efficiency. More public knowledge (one definition of "transparency") could stimulate debate about services and money, increase vigilance and arm scrutineers. But more and…