Over the last decade research has reported a range of positive life and learning outcomes for adult and child choristers through first-person accounts derived through surveys and interviews. Little is known regarding parent and child perspectives on choral learning, particularly regarding the impacts of participating in excellent choirs on musical…

This conceptual paper addresses the information in developing a comprehensive listening comprehension test to profile learners' listening performance based on international standards. Listening is a fundamental skill in which students need to gain adequate proficiency for their successful in communication and academic achievement. Underpinned by…

One of the greatest promises of the charter school movement has been the potential to create diverse school models to meet the varied needs of children, families, and communities. As policy makers and charter leaders have recognized the need to hold charters accountable for strong performance, however, there has been a move towards more…

Since 2016, the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative has been developing the Total Learning Architecture (TLA), a 4-pillar data strategy for managing lifelong learning. Each pillar describes a type of learning-related data that needs to be captured, managed, and shared across an organization. Each data pillar is built on a set of…

This article draws from a keynote address presented at the 2019 Doctoral Education Forum sponsored by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU). A review of the literature reveals growth in doctoral education in the United States and the proliferation of types of doctoral degrees. The article describes an increase in the variety…

The purpose of this paper is to share a model of a principal preparation program that is socially responsible. The program is collaborative with two departments at the Texas A&M University College of Education and Human Development: Educational Administration and Human Resource Development and Educational Psychology (Bilingual Education). The…

This paper aims to compare various Performance Management Systems (PMS) for business school in order to find the strengths of each standard as inputs to design new model of PMS. There are many critical aspects and gaps notified for new model to improve performance and even recognized that self evaluation performance management is not well…

The recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) is an historic opportunity for education leaders and funders to think broadly about innovation in terms of goals and accountability. This case examines two examples of states where responsible innovation regarding goals and accountability is long underway, with the support of…

The path to principalship in Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida is not one taken lightly. After receiving the Wallace Foundation Principal Pipeline Initiative grant, Hillsborough was one of six districts that developed a comprehensive principal pipeline based on four key components: leader standards that define the role of principal;…

As schools across the country prepare for new standards under the Common Core, states are moving toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. This paper recommends an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and…

Standards and accountability have become a central issue of educational reform in many countries. Professional standards for teachers and principals have been developed, and benchmarking and comparison are at the heart of the new performance assessment. "Designer leadership" has become a defining theme for leadership in the appearance of regimes…

Many theories, methods, and practices are utilized to evaluate teachers with the intention of determining teacher effectiveness to better inform decisions about retention, tenure, certification and performance-based pay. In the 21st century there has been a renewed emphasis on teacher evaluation in public schools, largely due to federal "Race…

The performing arts studio is a highly complex learning setting, and assessing student outcomes relative to reliable and valid standards has presented challenges to this teaching and learning method. Building from the general international higher education literature, this article illustrates details, processes, and solutions, drawing on…

Performance funding--the linking of allocation of resources to accomplishment of certain desired outcomes--is an idea that is once again finding favor with policymakers. It has intuitive appeal; what's not to like about paying for results? While it is a notion that makes common sense to most decisionmakers, it is an idea with a very checkered…

The author develops the basic idea of evaluation policy, describes a practical model for development and revision of evaluation policies (including a taxonomy, structure, and set of principles), and suggests critical challenges and opportunities for the future of evaluation policy. An evaluation policy is any rule or principle that a group or…