The primary objective of this brief is to explore open enrollment by examining the ways in which it is currently implemented. A second purpose of this brief is to identify the potential strengths and weaknesses of open enrollment in order to develop a more complete understanding of its contribution to education reform. Finally, recent changes to…

This Information Capsule answers the most frequently asked questions about M-DCPS' academic performance during the 2008-09 school year. M-DCPS earned a performance grade of "B" in 2009 and was only four points short of an "A." Over half of the District's schools (58 percent) earned an "A" and the percent of…

The undergraduate science programme was launched at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in 1991-92 with an enrolment of 1,210 students. The programme was well received, and enrolments increased over the years. However, the success rates have not kept pace with enrolment. In this paper, the authors report the results of an evaluation…

This article reports on surveys conducted in 2002, 2006, and 2008 by members of the Louisiana Academic Library Information Network Consortium (LALINC) for the purpose of chronicling both the status of information literacy programs in Louisiana and the role of general education directors in program formation. Results from each survey are given,…

Higher education in Russia is experiencing changes in curriculum and in the specialization and function of institutions in the search for a better model for a post-Soviet society. The early 1990s saw the start of the reform of the system of education in Russia. However, problems of quality and of continuity with secondary education have still not…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB 2001) has the faculties of every public and charter school scrambling to drive test scores of seven identified groups of children (African-American children, Anglo-White children, children with disabilities, Hispanic children, children of poverty, children with English language limitations, and Native-American…

When Ghana became independent in 1957 it had one of the most developed education systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Over the next forty years its education system expanded to provide places for most, but not all, of its children. Since the education reforms of the late 1980s enrolments have grown steadily; this contrasts with some SSA countries…

Silent exclusion, when children register and attend school but learn little, is a critical feature of educational access in South Africa. Several international studies (e.g. TIMMS, SACMEQ) have shown that despite high levels of investment, South African schools perform poorly in relation to other countries at similar levels of income. Equitable…

The article discusses the entry of standardised measurement into the educational systems of Sweden and Germany and the processes of shape-shifting associated with this process. In the first part of the article, we investigate how standardised measurement challenged existing ways of conceiving education in Sweden and Germany during the first half…

New Zealand has one of the lowest reported higher education qualification completion rates in the OECD, significantly below Australia. Why do so many New Zealand students not complete their qualification? This paper looks behind some of the numbers in an attempt to understand better and assess New Zealand's performance compared with Australia and…

This paper presents new evidence from national contextualized school performance data showing that, after taking into account those factors known to affect pupil achievement, state-maintained Catholic schools in England appear to be more academically effective than similar non-Catholic institutions. Using an American analysis of the nature of…

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that a large, diverse urban school district has chosen to promote in its students.…

The Research to Practice (RTP) column in "The Journal of Continuing Higher Education" has recently focused on evaluation methods that continuing education (CE) units can utilize, reports on surveys of CE practitioners, and recommendations for research on dynamics that impact CE programs and the students enrolling in them. In this article, the…

This article explores the relationship between charter school racial composition, school environments, and student achievement. We offer an original framework for understanding school context and its influence on schooling outcomes. We conclude that policymakers could better attend to the persistent educational inequality that has shaped U.S.…

The combined effects of standards-based reforms and accountability demands arising from recent technological and economic changes, say Tom Corcoran and Megan Silander, are requiring high schools to accomplish something they have never been required to do--ensure that substantially all students achieve at a relatively high level. Meeting that…