The implementation of national educational reform in China calls for newer and stronger school administration. Recognizing the need to establish a knowledge base for leadership development, we employ a set of existing US professional standards for educational leaders as a frame of reference to unpack the complex role of Chinese superintendents.…

The context of education is changing based upon social, political, and accountability factors. As a result, many large urban districts have turned to small school reform in efforts to address student learning outcomes. Research demonstrates that effective leadership influences school achievement and culture. This qualitative study examines the…

Leader perceptions of higher education reforms in Armenia are examined in order to gain an insight into how they view the reforms, their role in the reforms and the roles of others. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six Armenian higher education leaders and analysed in terms of the following five aspects relevant to leadership: policy…

This article explores how leadership can help to enable student voice to occur in schools. We find that the relationship between teachers and the school leader is a critical context for enabling voice. Specifically, we find that the following concepts were important for efforts to enable and foster student voice: (1) clear vision of school that is…

Recently, European school systems have seen various attempts to "modernise" their governance. Market and competition oriented reforms have not been central to governance innovation strategies in German speaking countries, however, their number and relevance is rising in recent years. A free school choice policy which abolishes…

Concern about using evidence-based practices to improve outcomes is not new. The same concern, described as the need to bridge the "research to practice gap," was expressed in special education more than 40 years ago. Despite continuing efforts to use the best information available to improve outcomes, the process occurs very slowly. Collectively,…

In the Australian state of Victoria, the State Government is responsible for delivering a public education system for the compulsory school years. It uses the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) as its agency to develop its educational curriculum, engage with local communities, develop and maintain a portfolio of…

The national qualifications framework (NQF) in South Africa has been seen internationally as one of the most, if not "the" most, ambitious qualifications frameworks. Support for the NQF at its inception was described as "extraordinary". It aimed to replace all existing qualifications in the country with a set of new…

Intervention at scale with the aim of improving student participation, engagement and outcomes in mathematics education is a challenge for educational policy makers and reformers. This article argues that an iterative annual cycle of policy formulation, implementation and evaluation enabled ongoing adjustments to the strategic focus, the…

California has embarked on a major new wave of curriculum reform with the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the new English Language Development (ELD) standards, and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The adoption of the CCSS builds a legacy of standards-based education reform in California that began with the…

This study examined how stakeholders in one school district located in a remote town perceived the instructional improvement efforts of the district, as well as the constraints and enablers of implementing instructional reforms. A qualitative approach, consisting mainly of interviews with teachers, principals, district administrators, and other…

This report provides six mini-case studies of higher education policy reforms enacted in other states, exploring the important role that state policy leadership played in developing, promoting, and implementing these policies aimed at improving higher education outcomes, and discussing the relevance of each reform effort for California. This…

Accountability and dissemination of its work are important elements of Cedefop's policy to provide assurance to stakeholders for resources used and results achieved. For a centre of expertise and policy advice like Cedefop, the impact of which is hard to gauge for the common European citizen, legitimacy of public expenditure is important, and is…

The effective implementation of educational reform is an issue that confronts both those that plan and sponsor those reforms and those that are affected by them. This article discusses networking processes in the context of reform in vocational and professional higher education. When exploring failures in educational change processes, issues…

Few questions in public education discourse benefit as much from research-based evidence as the question of class size--the pursuit of the ideal number of students that should be co-located for any particular period of instruction. But for policymakers, research on class size can be an embarrassment of riches, and much of the research appears to…