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Liberalism and conservatism: some characteristics -- The industrial revolution -- Socialist stirrings -- John Maynard Keynes and economic theory -- The Great Depression -- Keynesian economics and the road to serfdom -- The 1970s inflation -- Debt-based consumer capitalism and taxation -- Debt-based consumerism and a mountain of debt -- Too big to fail -- The common school movement -- Meeting the educational needs in a diverse society -- Intelligence testing -- Academic tracking -- Criticisms of IQ testing and tracking -- The effects of the proximate environment on IQ and academic performance -- The commodification of education -- Federal control through federal funding -- Parental satisfaction and student performance -- Charter schools, vouchers, and politics -- How did we get here? -- Following the money -- Education and the end of poverty -- Higher education in a privatized-Keynesian world -- The democratization of higher education -- The gainful employment rule and tacit collusion -- Declining public confidence and the politicized faculty -- Neoliberalism, priviatized Keynesianism, and the debt bomb -- Rethinking public education -- Egalitarianism and the drive for equal outcomes -- Reforming the nation's education system.

Jean-Francois Lyotard was one of the most influential European thinkers in recent decades. He was a leading participant in debates about post-modernism and the decline of Marxism, and he made important contributions to ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy. In this authoritative introduction, Williams tracks the development of Lyotard's thought from his early writings on the libidinal economy to his more recent work on the post-modern condition. Williams argues that despite the wide-ranging character of Lyotard's writings, they are animated by a long-standing concern to develop a

Available data indicate that academic performance among students in the United States has in many cases remained unchanged or has been declining over several decades despite concerted efforts at the state and federal levels in improve performance. With regard to public schools, the decline is commonly attributed to large class size and insufficient funding.
Although numerous studies have examined funding and class size and their influence on student performance, many of these investigations did not consider the available longitudinal data.
Consequently, they fail to provide a clear examination of both funding and class size effects. Close examination of these data from the US Department of Education, however, shows no significant funding or class-size effect. The present study involved data mining the vast store of education research produced at the US Department of Education to examine the role of class size and funding on public education.

Jean Baudrillard was born in Reims, France, in 1929, and completed his undergraduate work at the Sorbonne, taking a degree in German. Upon graduation, he taught high school. In the early 1960s, he began graduate studies at the University of Paris, Nanterre, earning his doctorate in sociology in 1966. Baudrillard published 30 books in which he examined various facets of modern society: gender, race, consumerism, politics, the media, and so forth. His focus was semiological—how objects and signs reflect the current human condition. Although Baudrillard did not write about education, his work is nevertheless relevant if we recognize that our educational system is a reflection of society. A Baudrillardian perspective raises the following question: What effect has consumerism had on education? To address this question, we offer some background information related to Baudrillard's philosophical inquiries. This is followed by our brief analysis of how Baudrillard's work may provide some potential answers to the above question and of how it can help us interpret the changes that have occurred in education during the modern period. We give special emphasis to The Consumer Society and Simulacra and Simulation.

The sociopolitical implications of contemporary music are investigated with self-administered questionnaire data pertaining to the political orientations, music involvement & musical preferences of 730 Coll students. Although not a probability sample, sample statistics indicate a demographic diversity generally representative of US Coll students. Political orientation is measured with a summated scale consisting of 4 Likert-format items pertaining to attitudes toward political & social change. Trichotomized into liberal, moderate, & conservative, political orientation is validated by its strong relationship to political party preference. 4 indices of involvement with music are used: (1) f of attendance at recent rock or popular music concerts; (2) number of records & tapes recently purchased; (3) usual amount of record or tape listening; & (4) usual amount of radio listening. Each index is trichotomized into high, medium, & low involvement with music. Musical preferences are assessed by Likert-format items pertaining to liking of each of 9 musical styles. These preferences are validated in a pilot study that indicates strong & appropriately patterned relationships between Likert-item preferences & liking of representative musical selections that are played. Data analysis uses percentage distributions & gamma coefficients. Liberalism is positively related to attendance at rock concerts, record, & tape purchasing, & record & tape listening; liberalism is negatively related to radio listening. The relationships are maintained when controls are introduced for sex, class-year, hometown size, family income, & father's education. Liberalism is negatively & fairly strongly associated with liking of current popular hits & easy listening music; liberalism is positively but weakly associated with liking of rock music, country & western, & classical music; liberalism is positively & fairly strongly related to liking of jazz, folk music, blues, & protest music. These patterns are also generally maintained after introduction of demographic control variables. The analysis suggests that contrary to many mass society theorists, contemporary music does have significant political elements, although the range & diversity of musical styles requires specification of the direction & strength of these political elements. AA.

A pilot study was conducted at a federal correctional institution to determine the extent to which personality factors, as measured by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), were related to work release success. The results indicated that only one MMPI scale (Pa) was significantly related to an inmate's success in the work release program. Implications for further research are discussed in the article.

Objectively delimiting species boundaries remains an important challenge in systematics and becomes urgent when unresolved taxonomy complicates conservation and recovery efforts. We examined species boundaries in the imperiled freshwater mussel genus Cyclonaias (Bivalvia: Unionidae) using morphometrics, molecular phylogenetics, and multispecies coalescent models to help guide pending conservation assessments and legislative decisions. Congruence across multiple lines of evidence indicated that current taxonomy overestimates diversity in the C. pustulosa species complex. The only genetically and morphologically diagnosable species in the C. pustulosa species complex were C. pustulosa and C. succissa and we consider C. aurea, C. houstonensis, C. mortoni, and C. refulgens to be synonyms of C. pustulosa. In contrast, all three species in the C. nodulata complex (C. necki, C. nodulata, and C. petrina) were genetically, geographically, and morphologically diagnosable. Our findings have important conservation and management implications, as three nominal species (C. aurea, C. houstonensis, and C. petrina) are being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act.