Reviews the Council of Chief State School Officers' effort to establish a nationwide system of educational indicators. Suggests the benefits of such a system. (MCG)

The nation is losing sight of the grand goals of education as it drifts toward centralized educational policymaking which concentrates on narrow measures of accountability and projects a view of education as an instrument for future employment. (Author)

In many countries, education legislation embodies contradictory pressures for centralization and decentralization. In the United Kingdom, there is growing government control over policy and direction of schools; schools are also being given more responsibility for resource management. "Moving" schools within Improving the Quality of…

Presents five definitions of "systemic change," ranging from "working with school districts or education departments to effect change" (vertical approach) to "working with every school in a system" or "working with every aspect of the school system (horizontal approaches). "Systemic" can also mean…

Describes debates over general education and the common curriculum in Great Britain and Canada. In Great Britain, the central government's Department of Education and Science supports a core curriculum. In Canada, the National Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, may recommend a common curriculum to the provincial ministries of education.…

The Italian education system was built on Napoleonic and Prussian models, with considerable power vested in the central government and many formal and legal controls. In 1994, after a 20-year failed experiment with governing school councils, the Minister of Education proposed reforms based on notions of autonomy. The current minister also favors…

States should take an active and direct role in education reform: supporting school reform efforts, providing technical assistance, defining and controlling educational content, and assessing the outcomes of education. (MLF)

Reviews some of the forms school centralization has assumed, some of the problems following in its wake, and a few of the solutions undertaken to date. Optional (nontraditional) schools are singled out as a promising answer to governance difficulties. (Author/MLF)

The current preoccupation in the United States with test-based accountability is founded on a set of faulty assumptions--about education practices elsewhere in the world, about international test score comparisons, and about the extent to which test scores are valid indicators of the quality of education or the state of the economy. For example,…

A Deming expert explains that his 14 principles are no recipe but must be combined with the theory of profound knowledge, which poses essential questions and recognizes the importance of human variation, intrinsic motivation, and external rewards. She also debunks grading, formal teacher evaluation, tracking, and decentralized management. (MLH)

Education support structure in the Netherlands is designed to ensure responsiveness to schools' needs and to avoid emergence of self-serving bureaucracy. National Institute for Curriculum Development was founded in 1975 to work with teachers and colleges of education to develop new curricula and instructional materials. Regional agencies located…