This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against…

The "Revista del Centro de Estudios Educativos," numero 3, 1971 included an early Carnoy article on the economics of education: "Un enfoque de sistemas para evaluar la educación, ilustrado con datos de Puerto Rico." The article used a unique data set that had student test scores, students' family background characteristics, and…

School-level inefficiencies and mismanagement can have serious repercussions for human resource development and labor market outcomes. This paper investigates the extent and consequences of existing technical inefficiency of schools with respect to their resource- and people-management aspects at a cross-country level across Organisation for…

This study aimed to explore students' perceptions of school practices that have ethical significance using an integrative model based on the eighth-grade Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015. The sample comprised 280,130 students, 8,353 principals, and 8,353 teachers from 8,353 different schools across 45 countries.…

Educational effectiveness research has provided evidence about the importance of teacher beliefs and attitudes for teaching and learning. This study builds on the concept of academic optimism, which combines 3 aspects of a teacher's professional creed: self-efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. The study explores the functioning of the…

Reports from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) consistently show that there is a substantial gap in average mathematics achievement between Singapore and the USA. This study conducts an exploratory comparative investigation on the multilevel factors influencing the mathematics achievement of students from these two…

The aim is to describe the development of achievement in compulsory school in the Nordic countries from the 1960s. The study relies on published results concerning literacy and numeracy from the international large-scale assessments between 1964 and 2012. Among others, the following conclusions are drawn: (1) for most countries, a small but…

Introduction: Studies of school effect usually evolve around two major issues; understanding of the factors within schools that explain variation in students achievement levels, and how differences among schools account for the variation in their students' achievement levels. Given the limited studies of school effect research in South Africa,…

The Department of Education and Training ('the Department') engaged Deloitte Access Economics to undertake research into the drivers of school quality in Australia, with the goal of expanding the evidence base available to the Department in analysing, evaluating and developing school policy. In particular, this work provides a new empirical…

Because results from TIMSS 2007 showed a gap in mathematics and science achievement between students in the United States and those in the top-performing countries, TIMSS 2007 data were used to investigate how school effectiveness factors known to be strongly associated with higher STEM achievement operated in the United States compared to Chinese…

There is ample evidence to suggest that American schools perform worse than schools in many other countries. The U.S. ranks toward the bottom of the industrialized nations on international tests of academic achievement in science and mathematics. Not only may American schools perform worse but they may do so at the same time as they use more…

Background: The dynamic model of educational effectiveness (DMEE) is a comprehensive theoretical framework including factors that are important for school learning, based on consistent findings within educational effectiveness research. Purpose: This study investigates the impact of teacher and school factors of DMEE on mathematics and science…

This paper reports on secondary analysis of TIMSS 2003 data with the aim of explaining the difference in science achievement of Korean and South African learners. The question asked by this research, i.e. which factors at various educational levels influence science achievement in Korea and South Africa respectively, is addressed from the…

Secondary school teaching is organized in departments and effective departments functioning as collaborative teams have been associated with effective schools. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship of mathematics departments perceived as professional communities and student achievement in Dutch secondary schools. Cluster analysis and…

Education is an area that is highly devolved in the UK, and the fact that all four constituent countries have pursued very different policies in the recent past provides a good testing ground to undertake a comparative review of the merits or otherwise of the education reforms that have taken place. There is, of course, an important policy context…