Reflective practice is foundational in what preservice educators should know and be able to do as noted in professional preparation standards for Early Childhood Education (ECE) and Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education (EI/ECSE). Reflection aids preservice educators in connecting course content with field and clinical experiences…

Purpose: This study aims to explore ways of developing, implementing and validating a new framework and criteria for self-evaluation of programme curricula, with specific reference to the quality assurance certification process in a particular case. Design/methodology/approach: The framework is developed using a case study research methodology and…

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 provided states with increased flexibility to design school accountability systems. A core element of the law is the requirement that states develop statewide systems allowing for meaningful differentiation among schools, and use this information to identify schools that should be the focus of improvement…

Most states have developed or revised school accountability systems in response to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). While these systems include multiple indicators, to many stakeholders the outcome of central interest is the overall rating or classification produced for each school. These ratings are often used to identify schools that merit…

The dialogue on what constitutes quality teacher preparation and how it should be assessed and evaluated is muddled. It begins neatly with a universal agreement and aspiration for quality teaching and enhanced PK-12 student achievement, then quickly scatters when there are attempts to define and weigh key components of academic excellence.…

There is a growing emphasis on accountability in the management of preschool education across the world. It has become common practice in many countries to evaluate kindergartens to monitor and ensure their quality. The Chinese government has been implementing the policy of evaluating kindergartens for 30 years. It mainly involves assessing…

In 2013, the National Academy of Education's (NAEd) report on teacher education program evaluation in the United States provided a substantial synthesis of how the nation approaches quality assurance for teacher education programs (Feuer et al., 2013). The United States, having no federal requirements for such quality assurance, proves to be a…

The Language and Culture Division (LCD) provides accountability with support to districts that serve students participating in Bilingual Multicultural Education Programs (BMEPs) so that all participating students achieve the program goals as outlined by New Mexico statute and administrative code, which are: (1) students become bilingual and…

The audit objective for this report was to determine whether the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PA Education) and selected Pennsylvania local educational agencies have sufficient internal controls to ensure that individualized education programs (IEP) are developed in accordance with Federal and State requirements for children with…

South Africa, like the rest of the world, was affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020, the country's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, imposed lockdown regulations in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which led to the closure of universities. When the national regulations allowed for the resumption of…

Accountability mechanisms and processes have evolved with changes in statute. State Education Agency (SEA) accountability systems may exhibit characteristics of compliance- and/or improvement-focused systems in light of requirements under the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" (ESEA) and its reauthorizations under the…

This report presents changes in educator and student outcomes for HISD, Achieve 180 Program schools, and non-Achieve 180 comparison schools which were Title I, Part A campuses for the fifth year of the program. Positive effects of the Achieve 180 Program were observed although there were still challenges which Achieve 180 Program schools needed to…

In many contexts, early educators are pressured to adopt narrow, skill-based curricular approaches and accompanying standards and measures of accountability. Alternatively, other educators infuse holistic learning and development through the play and guided inquiry of young children. For decades, passionate educators and caregivers have studied…

Since 2005, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has published annual analyses of Ohio's state report card data, focusing on district and charter schools in Ohio's Big Eight urban areas: Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown. For the 2017--18 school year, we provide an overview of Ohio's assessment and report…

Contemporary Froebelian-inspired early childhood education in the United States is challenged by government regulation and accreditation requirements that have arisen alongside neoliberalism in education. Using Critical Policy Analysis and case study examples from a preschool in Atlanta, Georgia, this paper examines the influence of neoliberalism…