The community school model is rooted in John Dewey's (1902) conceptualization of the public school as a hub for the community. This work has evolved over a hundred years and recently experienced prominence in the public eye as a fundamental component of New York City's school turnaround policy. This dissertation describes findings and…

Competency-based education is a next generation learning model that focuses on all students achieving mastery, preparing them for success in college, careers and civic life. State leaders can support policy for K-12 competency-based education to help all students succeed. This iNACOL Issue Brief provides an overview of competency-based education,…

Accountability measures facing superintendents and principals constrain the autonomy of local schools for improving learning. School leaders require autonomy to focus on improvement areas developed by stakeholders. Leaders can employ effective leadership practices to enhance learning. Leaders require autonomy to implement improvements independent…

Public education reforms that attempt to more accurately determine the impact of individual teachers on student learning outcomes have resulted in recent changes to educator evaluation systems. In Massachusetts, teachers are evaluated according to their performance on the standards of effective teaching and their progress on student learning and…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states are using a new approach to accountability based on multiple indicators of educational opportunity and performance. States have the opportunity to decide how to use them to identify schools for intervention and support and to encourage systems of continuous improvement across all schools. When…

New demographic research shows that the school-aged population in the U.S. is rapidly diversifying in terms of student racial and ethnic identity. However, as the educator workforce also diversifies, teachers of color are less likely than White teachers to remain in the profession and persist at their current school. This backgrounder reviews a…

Both Stefanie and Autumn have taught online classes in the past but are seeking ways to improve their online pedagogy and incorporate new technologies. Stefanie and Autumn have reflected a lot about their approaches to online teaching and ideas for revising their courses, but they felt that they could get deeper insights about online teaching…

Many students enter career and technical education (CTE) programs to pursue the attainment of job-specific skills. K-12 career and technical education program educators help prepare students for careers after high school by offering students a way to establish and improve upon industry-based skills (Treschan & Mehrotra, 2014). Through CTE…

In this study, we investigated teachers' motivation to learn following in the footsteps of emergent research efforts in the field. This qualitative study was grounded in the intersection of four research fields: policy, educational psychology, andragogy and professional development (PD). Findings indicate that teachers' dissatisfactions with their…

In addition to excelling in subjects such as science, math, arts, and social studies, students must also develop skills like resiliency, adaptability, and collaboration in order to truly succeed in the world. But how do schools effectively measure those skills when they so often rely on standardized assessments? This article provides a thorough…

English independent schools are not required to follow government statutory guidance in a number of aspects including career education and guidance, and yet many are actively engaged in careers work and this has caught the attention of policymakers. State schools are subject to statutory guidance but, according to Ofsted and other authorities, the…

This paper critically examines competing demands placed on teachers, with reference to recent inclusion policy in England and Australia. The authors draw on Michael Foucault's analysis of power, neoliberalism(s) and biopolitics to explore the ways in which teachers are "responsibilised" into negotiating and fulfilling demands related to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how primary school principals in Israel cope with the gaps between authority and responsibility in their work, deriving from partially implemented decentralization processes, and how this relates to school-based management (SBM) and accountability principles. Design/methodology/approach: Using…

The interview with Jonathan Plucker and Scott Peters presents the Excellence Gap as a concern to be noted in the United States as well as internationally. The Excellence Gap came to light as an important topic to inform policy when the Achievement Gap reached a high priority in U.S. schools. The emphasis on the Achievement Gap focused attention on…

Educating 21st century students to participate in reasoned, civil discourse is a moral imperative. A strong democracy depends upon the ability of its citizens to hear and consider opposing views, to view others as partners rather than adversaries, to cooperate and compromise when addressing important issues, to collaborate in order to accomplish…