Teacher effectiveness, which impacts student attainment even when controlling for student characteristics, is of key importance as a factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. Improving the quality of teaching is thus the primary means by which we can enhance student learning outcomes. Thus there has long been great interest in the…

"To whom do you turn in this school for advice or information about mathematics instruction?" (Spillane, Healey, and Parise 2009, p. 413). When teachers in forty-four schools were asked this question, they were more likely to indicate a teacher leader in their school, rather than the school's principal or any other administrator.…

Lead educational agencies (LEDs), school administrators, and teachers do not appear to grasp the influence of curriculum audits on students' academic performance relative to the level of recommendations that are implemented. Failure to comply fully with audit recommendations can have negative implications on a district's financial status and…

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006 findings highlighted concerns about reading literacy teaching quality in South African primary schools (Howie et al., 2007). In response, the national Department of Education (DoE, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d) has emphasised instructional practice improvement. However, little…

School districts have been struggling with the challenges of teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) for decades. Yet few studies have examined strategies for districtwide instructional reform for ELLs. To address this need, the Council of the Great City Schools sought to explore the experiences of large, urban districts with differing levels of…

School effectiveness research often uses multilevel models in which only direct effects of characteristics of schools on pupil achievement are modelled. Recently, more attention is given to conceptual models that assume indirect and antecedent effects. In this paper, we elaborate on these models and show that the findings from school effectiveness…

As part of its mission, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is committed to the development of the community of researchers who work in the area of assessment both nationally and internationally. The association also has a commitment to provide policymakers with the types of data and analyses that will…