This study examined classrooms in three, high performing, public secondary schools serving high need communities. Of 22 classes observed, we found approximately one third exhibited an instructional demand for 21st century skills. In many of the remaining classes, teachers appeared to apply misconceptions of 21st century skills, and unintentionally…

In order to realize the potential of design challenges in core chemical engineering courses, we need pedagogical strategies that enhance peer-learning. We describe parleys--a consensus-building approach to design challenge decision-making and report results from two design-based research cycles. Analysis shows students learned by coming to…

Collaborative design is recognised as being shaped by complex social, cognitive, material, and technical processes. In the case of design decision-making, however, the social dimension has yet to be fully understood as the product of the whole team dynamic rather than as simply the sum of the individual (cognitive) contributions. This paper…

Using data from Rhode Island, and deploying a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design, this study capitalizes on a natural experiment in which schools, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, were sorted into performance categories based on a continuous performance measure. The lowest performing schools were then mandated to…

Concerns with the readiness of beginning teachers has resulted in significant changes to ITE programs in Australia. Declining student performance in domestic and international assessments is being seen as a policy problem that can be addressed through policy solutions intended to lift the quality of teachers. While quality and performance measures…

In the last decade, neo-liberal movements have entered parts of the Swedish society, bringing increased accountability and public management to preschool (catering for children aged 1-5 years). While early childhood education research has generally focused on preschool, children and teachers, few studies have explored the perspectives of preschool…

Purpose: School improvement planning, especially for low-performing schools, can be conceptualized as a planning process to strategically improve organizational processes, operations and outcomes. However, bureaucratic procedures and related inflexibilities sometimes results in inauthentic plan development. The purpose of this paper is to analyze…

This study explores an online chat to determine how the dimensions of communities of practices (CoP) are reflected in participants' interactions on Twitter. The educational discussions, or Twitter chats, take place in an online microblogging platform. The CoP framework offers an approach to understanding the dimensions of mutual engagement, joint…

The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) is expanding internationally and reaching countries that seemed to be immune to this education reform approach until quite recently. Accordingly, more and more educational systems in the world are articulated around three main policy principles: accountability, standards and decentralisation. National…

The book analyses and evaluates several key community college reform programs that emerged after the Recession of 2008 and as a result of major initiatives in California, New York, Tennessee, Florida, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Because of the economic downturn in the early 21st Century, an already eroding financial base for public higher education…

In fiscal year 2018, nearly 13 million students and their families received over $122 billion in federal assistance to help them pursue higher education through programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. the Department of Education (Education) administers these programs, and is responsible, along with…

This tenth edition of "Measuring up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws" presents the latest activity in charter public school legislation across the country. This report evaluates each state's public charter school law against the 21 essential components of a strong charter school law. These 21 components are drawn from…

If free market advocates had total control over education policy, would the shared public system of education collapse? Would school choice revitalize schooling with its innovative force? With proliferating charters and voucher schemes, would the United States finally make a dramatic break with its past and expand parental choice? Those are not…

This case was written to encourage educators to reflect on what it means to provide high-quality instructional supervision in an era of accountability when the American public education system is heavily influenced by reform efforts that affect how students learn and how teachers are supported as instructors, and pressures school systems face to…

Planning the intended use of data and identification of bottlenecks are two best practices that faculty and administrators can use when they conduct assessments for the combined purposes of accountability and improvement. Prior to data collection, they need to have a clear plan of how the results should offer worthwhile insights. Upon…