This study employed hierarchical piecewise growth modeling and two interrupted time series models to examine the effect of introducing an Advanced Placement (AP) school accountability incentive on AP access in Pennsylvania. Specifically, we examined whether adoption of an advanced course access accountability indicator was associated with an…

Based on a research project comprising data from an interview study and a survey with teachers and school principals in four German federal states ("Bundesländer"), this paper questions the claim that the side effects of accountability in education are bound to high-stakes contexts, and also provides evidence of side effects occurring in…

Enacted in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was designed to increase collaboration among workforce systems at the federal, state, and local levels to integrate the array of programs and services available to job seekers and businesses through American Job Centers (AJCs). WIOA requires the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to…

The effectiveness of the higher education quality assessment system is essentially a matter of policy evaluation. On the macro level, such a system refers to external quality assessment, which includes government evaluation, quality certification, and university rankings. Depending on the degree of government intervention, the external quality…

This mixed method study was a practitioner inquiry into the teacher evaluation system that was enacted as a result of Pennsylvania House Bill 1901 (Act 82 of 2012). The study was an effort to gain an in-depth understanding of (a) factors that led to the passage of the Act 82 teacher evaluation policy, (b) what the policy was intended to do, and…

This article discusses the principles developed to assure the quality of international ranking practices for higher education, the so-called Berlin Principles, and the role given to them in the higher education community. While the principles are generally regarded as proper quality assurance principles, they are problematic both in their content…

As test-based educational accountability has moved to the forefront of national and state education policy, so has the desire for better measures of school performance. No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) status and safe harbor measures have been criticized for being unfair and unreliable, respectively. In response to such criticism, in 2005 the federal…

The author is a special education teacher in New York and a mother of two children on the autism spectrum. The author's intimate involvement in the education system has made navigating the world of special education for her children easier in some ways, but also infinitely more difficult and heartbreaking in others. Since the passage of No…

This paper explores Rizvi and Lingard's (2010) idea of the "local vernacular" of the global education policy trend of using high-stakes testing to increase accountability and transparency, and by extension quality, within schools and education systems in Australia. In the first part of the paper a brief context of the policy trajectory…

Many of the policies that fall under the school accountability umbrella are designed to incentivize students. Prominent among these are high school exit exams, standardized tests that, in some states, students must pass to earn a high school diploma. Proponents of these tests argue that by incentivizing students, they induce them to work harder…

Scotland, in common with many other countries internationally, has paid considerable attention to the development of assessment for learning. Currently, schools in Scotland are engaged in a major programme of curriculum and assessment reform, entitled Curriculum for Excellence. As part of the reform process, there is concern amongst practitioners,…

Currently there are multiple teacher education reform policies being proposed, piloted, and debated at a variety of levels and by various interest groups, stakeholders, and policy-makers. Along with an unprecedented sense of urgency about these important goals, what most U.S. reforms have in common is increased accountability. Using a discourse…

Recent national and state standards of accountability have focused on increasing student performance and achievement as well as teacher quality. Included in this challenge is the issue of teacher compensation and how it has evolved with the efforts of providing quality instruction in order to improve the performance of students. Texas has…

This book is about the threats to education quality in the developing world that cannot be explained by lack of resources. It reviews the observed phenomenon of service delivery failures in public education: cases where programs and policies increase the inputs to education but do not produce effective services where it counts--in schools and…

Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again…