Early educators are the key to quality early care and education (ECE) services, and there is broad consensus that high-quality care and learning environments for young children depend on educators who are skilled at nurturing children's development and learning. Yet, inadequate working conditions and low pay routinely hamper educators in their…

This report presents key findings from the four years of the Quality Support Program (QSP). The QSP is an initiative of, and funded by, the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education Early Childhood Education Quality Assurance and Regulatory Services Directorate (NSW DoE), involving the delivery by Australian Children's Education and Care…

Arizona's First Things First partners with other agencies to create a high-quality, family-centered, comprehensive, and collaborative early childhood system that supports the development, health, and early education of all Arizona's children through age 5, helping ensure they enter kindergarten healthy and ready to succeed. One of First Things…

The future of Greece's well-being will depend on improving educational performance to raise employment and social outcomes. The challenges are significant, as public education expenditure in Greece has declined in recent years and learning outcomes are weak. To help the Greek government address these challenges, this report proposes a set of…

In this paper we consider the challenges involved in evaluating teacher preparation programs when controlling for school contextual bias. Including school fixed effects in the achievement models used to estimate preparation program effects controls for school environment by relying on differences among student outcomes within the same schools to…

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) works with low-income countries around the world to help them provide basic education of good quality to all of their children. Countries develop education sector plans that set clear targets and commitments; their partners including donors, multilateral agencies, civil society and the private sector…

Quality assurance for higher education in Europe has developed significantly since 2002, and has increasingly influenced, and been influenced by, the Bologna Process. A major step in the Bologna Process was taken at the ministerial meeting in Bergen in May 2005, with the adoption of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

Over 20 years ago, the first university rankings entered public attention in the United States. Since then, there have been numerous other efforts to rank or rate universities or university departments. University report cards have become both popular with the public and increasingly important for academic institutions. A detailed examination of…

This article assesses the quality of the Spanish higher education system, focusing mainly on the methodological challenges that the existence of public and private universities represents in the calculation of global higher education rankings. Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of Pennsylvania calculated the first…

In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early…

Discusses, in the context of the National Research Council's next study of research-doctorate programs, arguments over continuing use of reputational surveys as the primary measure of program quality, as opposed to more objective measures of research performance. Eleven tables rank institutions for specific fields by reputation, citation density,…

Financing higher education requires political leaders, policymakers, and educators to address broad public policy questions, including ascertaining: the levels of state funding to colleges and universities that are necessary to maintain the economic and social well-being of the American people; the tuition levels that are appropriate given the…

This report examines the progress of Maryland's Joint Coordinating Committee for Occupational Education Programs in developing a systematic procedure for the evaluation of the quality of occupational programs in Maryland's community colleges. After presenting the 1976 resolution which established the joint committee of the Maryland State Board for…