This article examines Japanese education system especially relevant to the school curriculum, which might support Japanese high performance in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), mainly through Japanese policy documents. The Japanese education systems have been constructed by the local context of society and politics,…

Oklahoma's Student Data Accessibility, Transparency, and Accountability Act (known as the Student DATA Act) arose just as privacy concerns about student data were beginning to surface. According to Linnette Attai, founder of education technology compliance consultancy PlayWell LLC, "When this climate of data privacy first emerged in its…

International student assessments have become the "lifeblood" of the accountability movement in educational policy contexts. Drawing upon Stuart Hall's concept of representation, I critically examined who comprises epistemic communities responsible for developing the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Assessment of…

We examine edTPA (a teacher performance assessment) implementation at one private university during the first year that our state required this exam for initial teaching certification. Using data from semi-structured interviews with 19 teacher educators from 12 programs as well as public information on edTPA pass rates, we explore whether the…

Leadership is a highly complex activity, as leaders respond to increasing diversity and external accountability. Additionally, there is increased recognition that leadership is deeply contextual, sensitive to macro-politics of systems and micro-politics of individual schools. In Ontario, Canada, the school improvement effort is focused on raising…

On December 10, 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) was signed by President Barack Obama and became the United States' current national education law (United States Department of Education [U.S. DOE], n.d.). The ESSA was a long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Unlike previous…

The concepts of reflection and reflective practice have become the core of many teacher education programmes, with critical reflection as the goal for many teacher educators. This study examined the use of a videoconference discussion in an instructional methodology course as a means to enrich the process of reflection and encourage critical…

Policy discourse officially operates to distinctly influence public perception in an irrevocable and normalising manner. In a Maltese educational scenario of gradual decentralisation and increased accountability, I explore the "effects" of both the global and the local policy discourse of networks and networking on the practising…

Recently, student outcomes have bubbled to the top of debates about how to evaluate teaching in community and liberal arts colleges, universities, and professional schools, but even more international attention has been riveted on how outcomes are being used to evaluate teachers and administrators K-12 (Harris, 2012; Rowen & Raudenbush, 2016;…

Assessment forms an important part of instruction. Assessment that aims to support learning is known as formative assessment and it contributes student's learning gain and motivation. However, teachers rarely use assessment formatively to aid their students' learning. Thus reviewing the factors that limit or support teachers' practices of…

Students from low-income backgrounds face a variety of social and economic challenges that make it more difficult for them to achieve their potential. 2 To make matters worse, low-income students often attend public schools that receive less funding than schools serving more affluent students. It is also clear that some states do a far better job…

This 2015 annual report shares many of the accomplishments achieved by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in 2015 including the celebration of their 10th anniversary. Among other achievements, the report highlights: (1) At the end of 2015 Congress and the President agreed to an $80 million increase in support for the federal Charter…

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in 2004, it included provisions to reduce administrative and paperwork requirements to address concerns about burden. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review federal efforts to reduce burden related to meeting IDEA requirements for educating…

This document records testimony from a hearing held on April 22, 2015 on the topic of challenges that are faced by Native American schools. Nearly a century ago the Federal Government made a promise to deliver to Native American children a quality education that just doesn't teach math and science, but preserves their customs and culture.…

The "ESEA" flexibility initiative was designed to give states flexibility with certain provisions of the 2002 reauthorization of the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA"), also known as the "No Child Left Behind Act" ("NCLB"). This report explores the early implementation of state…