The state of Texas requires that each district and campus write an annual improvement plan (Texas Education Code, n.d.b). Although this study was conducted in Texas concerning Texas districts and campuses, it would be reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of the other states in the U.S. have similar improvement planning processes. The…

Educational reform is at the forefront of legislatures and school districts across the United States (Hattie, 2011). To find and employ high school improvement initiatives that lead to improved educational experiences for students, educational leaders must examine in great detail what systems have been successful and then modify the initiatives to…

The purpose of this qualitative collective case study was to explore current paraprofessional training programs offered to support paraprofessionals working with students with disabilities (SWDs), including both pre-service and in-service training. Specifically, this study evaluated training offered by local school districts within Southern…

Athena Swan was established in 2005 with the goal of advancing the careers of women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) subjects in higher education. Since then, it has expanded its remit in various ways and has generated some controversy. This paper explains how Athena Swan operates as a policy-scoring scheme,…

State support in higher education (HE) is often justified on the grounds that HE is important for the development of the country. However, little analysis is normally done in order to assess the impact of education quality initiatives. The Mexican government has been engaging in a policy of HE quality improvement that can be traced to 1989. In…

To protect human subjects to the fullest extent possible, stakeholders must make time to reflect as well as engage in continuous-improvement efforts regularly using a rigorous framework. At one completely online university that primarily grants graduate degrees, stakeholders informally expressed complaints relating to various policies and…

State financial aid is a critical piece of college affordability for students from low-income backgrounds. Nearly three quarters of all students attend college in their home state - which is typically a requirement for state-based financial aid - and first-generation and students from low-income backgrounds are even more likely than their peers to…

To what extent school improvement processes can be initiated and sustained from the outside has been a relevant question for policy-makers seeking to increase quality in education. Since 2008, the Chilean Government is strongly promoting the use of external technical support (ETS) services to support school improvement processes, as part of the…

The World Bank is clearly one of the most influential global intergovernmental operators for international development assistance. In recent decades, the Bank and other agencies have invested immense technical and financial resources in a troubled and unprecedented mission of revitalizing and restructuring the development of education in Africa. A…

This paper describes and analyses the work of a large scale improvement project in England in order to find more effective ways of fostering equity within education systems. The project involved an approach based on an analysis of local context, and used processes of networking and collaboration in order to make better use of available expertise.…

The Australian government initiated a review of higher education in 2008. One of the outcomes of the review was the formation of a national regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), with responsibilities to: register all higher education providers, accredit the courses of the non self-accrediting providers, assure…

Could the labour market gender balance be improved by introducing new types of apprenticeship-trained workers? This article investigates what happened in the wake of the Norwegian VET programme for health and social care, a new approach introduced via the 1994 educational reform. By upgrading this traditionally female-dominated area of education,…

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The law had a very simple mission: kick-start an economic recovery through strategic investment. Deep within the law were a number of key education initiatives, including Race to the Top (RTT), which was a way to invest in the nation's education system…

When students are able to cope with, manage and maneuver the social and emotional landscapes of their lives, their ability to learn on all levels improves. Teaching Social / Emotional Learning (SEL), as a component of secondary education, not only increases academic performance, but prepares students to meet the challenges of lifelong learning in…

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus package, provided an extra $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) under section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Along with this funding increase, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance…