Sustaining reform requires district leaders to develop a supportive infrastructure, nurture professional communities, reduce turnover, and use facilitators to build capacity. Bringing educators up to speed means providing abundant staff development, balancing pressure with support, providing adult learning time, and reducing fragmentation and…

Summarizes a study to describe, interpret, and explain a newly implemented college English course in the People's Republic of China, based on document interviews, classroom observations, and semistructured interviews of 11 institutions. Discusses structural aspects of this curriculum change from policymaking to implementation. Teachers'…

Examines contradictions between school accountability legislation and the moral leadership applicable to its development and implementation. Using the ethics of critique, justice, and care, analyzes Ohio's recent fiscal and accountability legislation, which may be setting school districts up for failure. Policymakers must examine their moral…

A survey of 224 early childhood special education public school programs in Massachusetts obtained information on program implementation, child characteristics, program settings, service characteristics, teacher characteristics, family involvement, and funding/administration. Results revealed important variations among school districts in…

Analyzes current and future directions of educational change in Quebec, highlighting major policy themes: governance and organization, teaching and learning, and human and financial resources. The necessary conditions for achieving intended reform goals may be lacking. Schools lack the capacity to engage in self-development without external…

"Beyond Tracking" responds to the a sobering assessment of American high schools by delineating and promoting an innovative and well-defined notion of multiple pathways. The book's authors clearly distinguish their use of the term "multiple pathways" from any updated version of the tracking system that marked so many American high schools during…

The Untied Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Competency Standards for Teachers (ICT-CST) project aims to improve teachers' practice in all areas of their work, combining ICT skills with innovations in pedagogy, curriculum, and school organization. It is also aimed at…

The Polish school education system makes a distinction between two types of assessment: (1) Intra-school or internal assessment; and (2) External assessment. The idea of introducing external examinations into the Polish school education system emerged in 1992. This was directly inspired by study visits to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands…

The Leventis Foundation (Nigeria) Agricultural Schools (LFNAS) are schools established to train youths to develop their state and their nation in the area of food production. This study sought to assess the trainability of enrollees in the three operating LFNAS. Five research questions were posed. The CIPP evaluation model was adopted. The…

This project came about after discussions with the general manager of the Wellington Region Free Kindergarten Association and Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips (University of Waikato) about setting up a research partnership to support the teachers at Taitoko Kindergarten in Levin. The teachers were establishing an integrated community centre (the whanau…

The Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program was federally- and state-funded and provided three-year grants to schools to design and implement performance pay plans from the 2005-06 to 2007-08 school years. GEEG was implemented in 99 high poverty, high performing Texas public schools. This report builds on the previous GEEG evaluation…

This paper examines the impact of a distance education program offered by the University of Pretoria, South Africa, on the professional practice of teachers. A pilot study was conducted using a combination of surveys and focus group interviews. Findings reveal that the program was beneficial to graduates' personal development, professional…

This paper reports on the re-design of the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programme, which is offered by the University of Pretoria through distance education (DE) to teachers in rural South Africa. In 2007, a team re-designed the programme with the goal of promoting access, quality, and student support. The team included an independent…

The impact of voucher schools on the further education (FE) curriculum in Britain was examined in a study of the 22 FE colleges and 3 training and enterprise councils (TECs) involved in the initial pilot testing of the 5 voucher schemes: Youth Credits; Gateway to Learning; Skill Choice; Open Learning Credits; and Adult Training Credits. It was…

This paper examines the cultural politics that arise when the decision is made to place health services in schools and suggests ways in which the different discourses that surface regarding program implementation might be reconciled. The policy analyses for the paper were based on a 2-year statewide evaluation of a supplemental school health…