This book discusses national school policy reforms in a number of key European countries and shows how these are framed in transnational collaborations that meet with national particularities and contestations. It gives an overview of school policy developments that represents the diversity of Europe within a comparative framework. It takes point…

In light of the shift towards incorporating multimodality in the curriculum, it is of interest and value to examine the extent to which multimodal literacy is assessed in national and international literacy tests. This is so as to surface any misalignment between the two and highlight gaps which curriculum planners and assessment designers can…

Standardised International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) have gained prominence in global and national educational discussions. ILSAs claim to offer valuable insights for improving education systems, but their impact on educational policy varies and has become a contested arena. This article analyses how these assessments fed educational…

For the last 30 years international assessments have become more widespread and systematic, and their influence on education policy has increased: the OECD through the PISA tests has played a major role in this process. This article reflects on the case of the countries of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. It analyzes the…

The research compared and assessed 6th grade student large-scale assessment item indicators according to the revised competency-based Science curriculum in Latvia, in order to understand what improvements are needed in the large-scale assessment for aligning the national assessments with the new national curriculum, and thus ensuring successful…

This study examines the influence of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 1999 results on mathematics education policy in Israel. Analyzing various documents, the study shows how these results transformed policymakers' discourse regarding mathematics education. In order to achieve improvement in Israel's ranking, the…

Recognizing the limitations of the existing frameworks and models applied to estimate the learning loss caused by COVID-19 across the world by different studies, and the urgent need for estimating such loss at the different education levels, this paper, employs the Education Value Chain Analysis ( EVCA) approach as a new paradigm, attempts to…

The Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) has been administered to 15-year- olds every three years since 2000. Since then, the U.S. has performed below average in mathematics, with no significant changes in performance. The objective of this study was to examine the alignment of the content students in the U.S. are assessed on in…

The Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) continues its advocacy for Common Core and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a federally funded testing consortium, with the release of a study concluding that Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) performance is not an indicator of…

Quebec students have generally excelled in international mathematics comparisons and 22% performed in the top category, Level 6, on PISA in 2012. Several countries with more extensive gifted programs scored and ranked considerably lower and had smaller proportions achieving Level 6. Does this mean a general mathematics curriculum with such indices…

This article examines the complex relationship between England's new National Curriculum and the neoliberal reform of education known as GERM. It explores contradictions between economic functionality and Gove's nostalgic traditionalism. It critiques the new curriculum as narrow, age-inappropriate, obsessed with abstract rules, and poorly focused…

The current policy gaze on teacher quality is resulting in significant shifts in how teacher education is conceptualized, designed and delivered. Traditional approaches to teacher preparation and continuing professional development (CPD) are being challenged, and often displaced, by new models that expedite the process and experience of becoming a…

As states struggle with the notion of international competitiveness, the quality and rigor of academic content standards has come into question. While Ohio's content standards are well regarded, the state initiated a process to revise the standards and eventually joined with the majority of states in adopting a voluntary set of national…

This report illustrates how four high-performing systems--British Columbia (Canada), Hong Kong, Shanghai (China) and Singapore--developed their teacher professional learning. The report and accompanying materials are designed as a resource for teachers, school leaders and policymakers wanting to improve teacher professional learning in their…

Prepared for a Strategic Education Governance learning seminar, this working paper analyses the ways in which the Dutch government tried to reach overarching goals in education, in a system characterised by a high degree of distributed autonomy of education institutions and the participation of multiple actors, and consequently a government highly…