This is the first report from an ongoing study of four urban school districts (New York, New Orleans, Chicago, and the District of Columbia) that are experimenting with new school designs and new ways of holding schools accountable for performance. This report introduces the idea of a "portfolio school district," and shows how some leading school…

This paper, written from a British perspective, looks at "new" methods of learning that are transforming higher education teaching and learning and at some issues in quality control that arise from these rapid changes. The author notes that in the past new methods have often mistakenly been hailed as the panacea of current educational problems but…