The Career and Technical Education (CTE) playbook series has explored strategies and processes states can use to strengthen CTE program quality and provide students with pathways to postsecondary credentialing and middle- and higher-wage career opportunities. This fifth playbook in the series addresses the final set of steps for strengthening…

This annual report demonstrates the value of Cedefop's work and the ingredients of the Agency's success: being a step ahead, understanding current trends, and a solid knowledge and evidence base on vocational education and training (VET), skills and qualifications. Continuity and innovation characterise the achievements of Cedefop in 2019--a year…

Helping to make vocational education and training (VET) fit for future challenges while meeting those of today: this principle best encapsulates Cedefop's work and achievements in 2018. Policy discourse throughout the year reflected the growing recognition that devising employment, social and education and training policies in different silos is…

For fifteen years, Australian Higher Education has engaged with the openness agenda primarily through the lens of open-access research. Open educational practice (OEP), by contrast, has not been explicitly supported by federal government initiatives, funding, or policy. This has led to an environment that is disconnected, with isolated examples of…

In 2005, the UK government introduced new vocationally related diploma qualifications. Two-year programs were examined in the summers of 2010 and 2011; initial government hopes for candidate numbers proved largely ephemeral and results were disappointing. This article explores what happened to the diploma's lofty ambitions using the summer of 2010…

This paper explores the impact of a Teaching and Learning Audit of all government schools in Queensland, Australia. This audit has a concern with the extent to which schools "differentiate classroom learning". We note that in England, since September 2012, one of the standards that teachers have been expected to demonstrate is an ability…

This research analyzes the scheme proposed to assess the quality of higher education institutions in China, namely, the Quality Assessment of Undergraduate Education (QAUE) scheme. This article aims to determine the impact of the QAUE on universities and explore the reasons that intended effects have or have not been generated in the evaluated…

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…

This study investigated educational leaders' critical evaluations of California's landmark contemporary school equity legislation "Williams v. the State of California". Qualitative interview analysis indicated that leaders perceived the equity measure to be necessary but insufficient in advancing the larger project of educational…

The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program has the potential to be the largest school voucher program in the country. Though the authorizing legislation capped enrollment in the program at 7,500 for its first year (the 2011-12 school year), that cap was increased to 15,000 for this year, and will be removed for all subsequent years. With careful…

The 12 winners of the federal Race to the Top competition have experienced near-universal challenges in turning their sweeping, multifaceted proposals into reality, among them a limited state capacity to execute fast, dramatic change and deeply rooted teacher-evaluation systems that have proved hard to transform. Reports unveiled by the U.S.…

In Finland, quality assurance related to the Bologna process has been adapted to existing systems of higher education at the national level and a form of implementation is also recognised at the level of the higher education institution. In universities, varied outcomes of quality assurance are based on interaction of organisational structures,…

How can schools respond to the call to equip all students with the math skills required in college and the workforce when students are working at widely varying skill levels? Offering extended instructional time in algebra, or double-dose instruction, offers one potential solution to this dilemma and has become an increasingly popular approach for…

In the 2006-2007 school year, the State of Wyoming adopted an evidenced-based school funding model. The Wyoming funding model reviewed in this study is considered an evidence-based approach, utilizing expert judgment to determine educational funding. In an evidence-based approach, educational strategies are identified and a dollar figure is…

In the summer of 2009, school districts began receiving the first wave of federal economic stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Totaling about $100 billion over two years--more than double the fiscal year 2009 budget for the U.S. Department of Education (ED)--the education portion of the stimulus package…