This article provides results from a study of the hidden processes of consensus formation that precede and make possible official judgments and decisions of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (SI). The research question for the study was: How is knowledge negotiated on the back stage of school inspection and presented on the front stage? The article…

Education is widely accepted as the main backbone of growth and development of individuals and the nation. However, its achievement continues to elude many who are poverty stricken. Government of Kenya introduced free primary education in 2003 and tuition free secondary education in 2008. It is estimated that about 3 millions children are not…

This article summarizes the work of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC) in assisting community colleges through cost savings programs, collaborative programmatic initiatives, and research to inform policy and improve practice--including recent efforts to develop valid and reliable methods of measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of…

Recent apprehensions over the poor performance of secondary schools at ordinary level in Tanzania have given rise to concerns over the quality of education provided at this level. Addressing the issue of poor performance requires a gargantuan understanding of the environment under which these schools operate. This study explored how management of…

What are the policies, programs and practices that make some high schools in the same state and district context more effective than others? Motivated to understand the differences between schools with similar size and demographics yet different attendance, graduation and levels of student academic growth, the National Center for Scaling Up…

We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural metric. We implement this for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is…

In contemporary educational settings, school leaders and teachers face increased accountability and pressure to raise student performance. Utilising professional learning to develop individual and collective capability is a common feature of these settings. In Australia, there is evidence that many schools have implemented action research to…

There is some disparity in the quality of education among the various races and provinces in South Africa. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, the government has tried to bridge the gap using quintile categorisation of public schools and its concomitant funding. The categorisation is based on the socioeconomic status of the community in which the…

Previous studies indicate that school climate is important for student health and academic achievement. This study concerns the validity and reliability of the student edition a Swedish instrument for measuring pedagogical and social school climate (PESOC). Data were collected from 5,745 students at 97 Swedish secondary schools. Multilevel…

This review paper begins by asking what makes few schools outstanding. What makes them successful? What have we learned from last two decades of studying School Effectiveness (SE)? To answer those questions, this paper attempts to identify the patterns and trends of Studying School effectiveness from western perspective. The main purpose of this…

In the USA, trends in educational accountability have driven several models attempting to provide quality data for decision making at the national, state, and local levels, regarding the success of schools in meeting standards for competence. Statistical methods to generate data for such decisions have generally included (a) status models that…

The growing popularity of the concept of world-class universities raises the question of whether investing in such universities is a worthwhile use of public resources. Does concentrating public resources on the most excellent universities improve the overall quality of a higher education system, especially if definitions of excellence and…

Despite claims that school districts need flexibility in teacher assignment to allocate teachers more equitably across schools and improve district performance, the power to involuntarily transfer teachers across schools remains hotly contested. Little research has examined involuntary teacher transfer policies or their effects on schools,…

School choice sits at the center of the education reform agenda. The most recent national study from Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that charter school students perform comparably in math and better in reading than their peers in traditional district schools. Often lost in the growing national enthusiasm…

This article explores the role of enabling school structures, collegial trust, and collective efficacy in 15 pre-Kindergarten to 12th grade international, private schools in South and Central America and Mexico. While most of these schools shared an "American" curriculum the local culture and school norms affected the climate of the…