Making the ordinary school special

SUMMARY. In recent years there has been considerable debate about how the education service should provide for children with special educational needs. In arguing for keeping such children in mainstream schools the author begins by focusing upon some of the myths which have developed in the field of special education and which may themselves act as barriers to change. Then a number of critical issues are outlined along with some indications of the kinds of changes in policy and practice which might be required if ‘ordinary schools are to become special’. Particular emphasis is placed upon the important, but neglected, area of policy and directions at the LEA level. This article is based upon the book Making the Ordinary School Special by Tony Dessent (Falmer Press, 1987).     

DIRECT TESTS OF INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES FOR EFFICIENCY AND EQUITY

Departures from “economic man” behavior in many games in which fairness is a salient characteristic are now well documented in the experimental economics literature. These data have inspired the development of models of social preferences that assume agents have preferences for equity and efficiency as well as their own material payoffs. Empirical failure of the economic man model comes from experiments that provide direct tests of its distinguishing characteristic: indifference to the payoffs of others. This paper reports an experiment that subjects popular social preferences models to the same type of empirical challenge. We report direct tests of the distinguishing characteristics of these models: preference for allocations that have higher efficiency and greater equity. (JEL A12, A13, B49, C70, C91, D63)     

IN SEARCH OF THE WINNER'S CURSE

Earlier papers on the winner's curse have provided theoretical arguments that winning bidders in an auction will incur ex post losses even when all bidders use reasonable ex ante bidding strategies. This paper demonstrates that these arguments are erroneous: optimal ex ante bidders will never suffer from a winner's curse in an auction where only the winning bid is announced; furthermore, such bidders will on the average not suffer from a winner's curse in an auction where all bids are announced. Thus if a winner's curse is a behavioral reality then bidders are not generally using ex ante optimal strategies.     

Children who refuse to speak: Ethnic background of children with special educational needs described as elective mute

SUMMARY. Headteachers reported on the characteristics of 8,067 children in a large sample of urban special schools and units. Twenty-three children were identified as elective mute. The age, sex, ethnic background, and other behaviour difficulties described in this sample are outlined. It is argued that previous explanations for the ethnic composition of samples of elective mute children need to be reconsidered in the light of this data.     

AN ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE OPTIMIZED PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY SOFTWARE AND ITS USE

During the 19805 much attention, both pro and con, was directed toward optimized production technology (OPT). Criticism was directed at the proprietary nature of the scheduling algorithms within the software. Despite these criticisms, many large companies installed OPT. Little has been written on how the software is constructed and operates. This article introduces the software, provides a discussion of how it interfaces with management, and how various algorithms are imbedded in the software function. Last, a survey of companies that had implemented the software revealed that the major users are in the automotive industry.