Curricula at most colleges and universities in the United States are scheduled according to quarters or semesters. While each schedule has several potential advantages over the other, it is unclear what effect each has on student performance. This study compares biology student performance during the two and a half years before and after the 1999…

Since the late nineteenth century, China, as a latecomer to modernization, has prioritized Western learning. The first modern university was created in China in 1895 to serve such a purpose with little linkage to China's rich indigenous cultural traditions. Modelled on European and North American experiences and operating in a Confucian…

Turnaround Arts is a public-private partnership that aims to test the hypothesis that strategically implementing high-quality and integrated arts education programming in high-poverty, chronically underperforming schools adds significant value to school-wide reform. In 2014, the Turnaround Arts initiative completed an evaluation report covering…

The emerging discourse on science in social work (SW) has generated much-needed analysis of the profession's status as a scientific enterprise. Brekke raised critical issues that must be addressed for SW to become a science. This response examines the contextual factors that led to the call for SW science. It also relies on a comparative…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was designed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to evaluate the quality, equity, and efficiency of school systems around the world. Specifically, the PISA has assessed 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy on a 3-year cycle, since…

Vocational education and its leadership is an important sphere of economic activity worldwide and is being impacted by several trends including: the increasing significance and centrality of skills development in today's economies; economic trends associated with globalisation (internationalisation of education and emergence of global labour…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced the No Child Left Behind Act with great fanfare and enthusiasm. Granting more power to states and curbing what was seen as federal overreach was well received. However, the new legislation maintains a predominately test-based accountability system with a federal mandate for interventions in well over…

We provide an overview of research in sustainability education. We argue that the interconnectedness of environmental sustainability programs at K-12 schools is one metric by which sustainability education can be conceptualized. We present a new measure of whole-school sustainability, or "interconnectedness," and then use it to compare…

University governance reforms are very much a reflection of the broader New Public Management reforms that are focusing on increasing efficiency in public organizations. The article deals with how university reform ideas of a generic nature, emphasizing that universities should be treated and reformed like any other public organizations, are…

Most countries are either reforming their education systems, or thinking about doing so. The EU, through its "Transversal" programme, funds hundreds of study visits every year to enable education professionals to learn at first hand about developments in its member states. The author joined a group from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal,…

Success for All (SFA), one of the best-known school reform models, aims to improve the reading skills of all children but is especially directed at schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families. First implemented in 1987, SFA combines a challenging reading program, whole-school reform elements, and an emphasis on continuous…

Success for All (SFA), one of the best-known school reform models, aims to improve the reading skills of all children but is especially directed at schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families. First implemented in 1987, SFA combines a challenging reading program, whole-school reform elements, and an emphasis on continuous…

Market reforms in education are part of the educational policy landscape in many countries. Central to arguments for market reforms is the idea that competition and choice will spur changes in schools to be more innovative, which in turn will lead to better student outcomes. We define innovation in terms of a practice's relative prevalence in a…

This paper discusses three central issues relating to quality and standards: clarity, comparability and responsibility. The issue of clarity is that we have reached a point of disjunction between the questions being asked by the public and the answers being provided by quality assurance professionals. The issue of comparability comes in two forms:…

The four "home countries" of the United Kingdom are becoming increasingly different with regard to education policy. Nevertheless, they are still highly comparable as compared to education systems elsewhere. Over time, they have had a similar legislative framework (particularly in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and, in a broader…