In their nascent stages, charter schools formed under competing ideologies. In academic circles, charter schools were envisioned as pedagogical laboratories that would allow for educator- and community-driven school improvement. In other circles, charter schools emerged as a free-market reform driven by accountability, choice, and growth. Amid the…

This paper examines the impact of school accountability on adult crime and economic self-sufficiency. We employ a unique source of linked administrative data from a Southern state and exploit exogenous variation generated by the state's accountability regime. Our findings indicate that a school's receipt of a lower accountability rating, at the…

The purpose of this study is to explore the implications of a standards-based curriculum for what constitutes knowledge in different teaching contexts. The research question is as follows: How is the logic of uniformity within curriculum standards recontextualised into actual teaching in different school environments, here focusing on the concepts…

The educational system in Ghana has undergone various reforms as a result of colonisation, changes in government and constitutional amendments. These reforms have been accompanied by changes in educational assessment programmes. This paper explored the history of educational assessment in Ghana, understanding how educational reforms, colonisation…

In South Africa, the scholarship of epistemic justice has taken on an historical gaze with higher education framed as a social institution that might ameliorate the historical traumas of colonialism. Undoing the legacies of colonialism has been framed as the democratisation of the knowledge project. Using the White Paper 3 of 1997 that posits…

This study investigated teacher-driven change efforts. A review of existing literature posits that the current education system is largely driven by top-down mandates, such as the implementation of evidence-based practices generated by large scale and randomized controlled trials. While these approaches provide the field with important knowledge,…

State University Systems look to increase success as part of accountability to stakeholders, while at the same time competing for a decreasing college age population and declining annual state appropriations. Research has been limited on State University Systems and the examination of the institutional characteristics and their ability to assist…

While never a loved organisation, Ofsted's reputation has perhaps never been so low. Amid a myriad of calls for reform or abolition, former HMI Adrian Lyons reflects on his 20 years of inspection with over 16 years employed by Ofsted as an HMI. He concludes that one of the biggest problems with Ofsted is its frequent change in policy, activity and…

Subject departments are an increasingly important unit of analysis for research on schools and beginning teachers' experiences. By analysing a practice-based typology of eight departmental types through an exploratory factor analysis of questionnaires completed by beginning teachers (n = 55), the authors refined the typology to four (hierarchical;…

Supervised agricultural experiences (SAE) have been a core tenet of school-based agricultural education. Despite this, limited evidence has existed regarding the best practices associated with facilitating quality student learning for SAEs at the middle school level. In response, we used self-regulated learning as a lens to examine this…

In this review, I examined the last two decades of research on data use in education to outline the ways in which principals used data to inform their own leadership practices. I found three themes: first, student achievement data were the most widespread form of data that principals used; second, principals' work has been reshaped by teacher…

"Through-year assessments" are assessments that are administered in multiple parts and at different times over the course of a school year that also produce summative scores that can be used with state accountability systems (Lorié et al., 2021; Dadey & Gong, 2023). These assessments are alternatively known as instructionally…

Action research is an essential practice that aligns deeply with how Montessori tasks educators with being scientists, saints, and servants. These three roles anchor educators' understanding and efforts as they seek to incorporate action research into Montessori pedagogy. In this article, the author offers a way to incorporate critical reflection…

I grew up on free school meals and now work as a school improvement adviser. In this article, I address discontinuities within my 'support and challenge' role, a role that can be constrained by educational policy enacted within a performative and panoptic culture of fear. Successive governments have concerned themselves with promoting equity…

In 2015, the governments of United Nations Member States agreed on an ambitious agenda for people, planet and prosperity. Support for the unprecedentedly ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda was obtained, however, on the condition that there would not be any accompanying enforcement or accountability…