In The Path to Free College, Michelle Miller-Adams argues that tuition-free college, if pursued strategically and in alignment with other sectors, can be a powerful agent of change. She makes the case that broadly accessible and affordable higher education is in the public interest, yielding dividends not just for individuals but also for the communities, states, and nation in which they reside. Miller-Adams offers a comprehensive analysis of the College Promise movement--its history, impacts, and unintended consequences--and its relationship to access, affordability, and workforce readiness. These factors are explored through data, analysis, and case studies of existing place-based scholarship programs. She also examines historical precursors of the free-college movement and evaluates the possibility of national action. The Path to Free College outlines how the design of free-college programs should relate to programmatic goals and explores the suitability of different approaches. In addition, the book describes both the need for and the challenges of implementing a nationwide free-college program, as well as the variety of models and research-based evidence. Given the raging national debate about tuition-free college, the moment is right for a book that assesses state and local efforts and offers policy leaders and practitioners guidance going forward. The Path to Free College asserts that the promise of private and public gains warrants public investment in tuition-free college.

Analyzing the lack of diversity among opera executives, this book examines the careers of executive opera managers of color in the U.S. By interrogating the impact of race on arts managers’ careers, the author contemplates how opera might attract and retain more racially diverse arts managers to ensure its future. With a focus on the U.S., research is contextualized via qualitative data to explore, enhance, and institutionalize access, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) in the opera industry. In a revealing series of expert-conducted interviews, the author poses illuminating questions, such as: what if an inability to recruit and retain diverse executives is the primary source of opera’s challenges? if more racially diverse opera executives existed, would the art form persist in struggling to find its place in contemporary society? from where will the next generation of diverse opera managers emerge? As the magnitude of the global diversity problem grows within the creative and cultural industries, this book serves as a guide for Arts Management practitioners and students who may view their class, different ability, ethnicity, gender, race, or sexual orientation as a liability in their pursuit of executive careers.

In times of growing economic inequality, improving equity in education becomes more urgent. While some countries and economies that participate in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have managed to build education systems where socio-economic status makes less of a difference to students' learning and well-being, every country can do more. Equity in Education: Breaking Down Barriers to Social Mobility shows that high performance and more positive attitudes towards schooling among disadvantaged 15-year-old students are strong predictors of success in higher education and work later on. The report examines how equity in education has evolved over several cycles of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It identifies the policies and practices that can help disadvantaged students succeed academically and feel more engaged at school. Using longitudinal data from five countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States), the report also describes the links between a student's performance near the end of compulsory education and upward social mobility - i.e. attaining a higher level of education or working in a higher-status job than one's parents.

This book explores how different classroom discourses and concepts of knowledge permeate teaching in high- and low-performance classrooms. Drawing on empirical research from classrooms in Sweden, it presents a theory-based framework for classroom research. The book examines the central concepts of knowledge, curriculum, pedagogy and equity to discuss differences in access to knowledge and the implications of these differences for students’ future opportunities and well-being. It analyses the relationships between different teaching factors and discusses teaching from democratic perspectives developed within curriculum theory. Combining insights from curriculum theory with insights from sociolinguistic and sociocultural classroom research, this project breaks new ground in how knowledge from curriculum content is recontextualised into concrete teaching practices in the context of a standards-based curriculum. Providing valuable insights into the intersections between classroom practice, student performance and teacher expectations, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of curriculum research, education policy, teacher education and classroom practice.

This book provides practical guidance for managers, leaders, diversity officers, educators, and students to achieve the benefits of diversity by focusing on creating meaningful, inclusive interactions. Implementing inclusive interaction practices, along with accountability practices, enhances performance outcomes for the organization and improves equity for members of historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. The book highlights the need to challenge existing approaches that have overemphasized representational—that is, numerical—diversity. For many decades, the focus has been on this important first step of increasing the numbers of underrepresented groups. However, moving beyond representation toward a truly inclusive organizational culture that produces real performance and equity has been elusive. This book moves the focus from achieving numerical diversity to achieving frequent, high-quality, equitable, and productive interactions that enable individuals to leverage their distinctive talents and provides the steps to do so. The benefits of this approach occur at the individual, workgroup, and organizational levels. Real-life examples of good inclusive practices are provided from across the for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental sectors and in various organizational contexts. The book is ideal not only for those charged with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in organizations but also for organizational leaders and managers who can create and/or support the implementing of inclusive organizational practices and also for postgraduate and undergraduate students studying human resource management, organizational behavior, management, or diversity, equity, and inclusion.

From Librarian of Congress, James Billington, to founding director of the Center for the Book, John Cole, the leading-edge information specialists of the day share their insights on the role libraries play in advancing democracy.

Across OECD countries, almost one in every five students does not reach a basic minimum level of skills. This book presents a series of policy recommendations for education systems to help all children succeed.