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…

Paul Leather is New Hampshire's deputy commissioner of education. In this article he writes that he believes education policymakers over the past few decades have made two critical decisions that have had deep, deleterious effects on the overall public education system. First, by demanding that each school be evaluated based on a single externally…

The purpose of this study is to analyze how China has strived to develop its world-class research universities and what are distinguishing characteristics of China's efforts to form these universities for the last decades. This study begins with a review of literature and research questions. It then touches on the background and rationale of…

Over a decade has gone by since the report of the Widening Participation Committee--"Learning works"--was presented to the Further Education Funding Council. Ten years on, this report asks how far have we come in the decade since "Learning works"? What progress have we made? And what barriers have we yet to overcome? Bringing…