Education researchers and classroom teachers have argued that the constant pressure to measure and rank students makes it difficult to shape assessment as an episode of learning. Yet we know little about how learning moves in and through assessment of any kind. Building on two national multisited studies, the research reported here uses…

Throughout this era of greater educational accountability, assessment researchers have argued that large-scale comparative assessment data can enhance learning within and across systems of education and can foster reforms based on the practices of high achieving jurisdictions. Other researchers are less optimistic, warning that educational reform…

Stakeholder surveys conducted as part of the development of an accountability and assessment system for five charter schools in Miami-Dade County and Broward County, Florida, revealed high positive response regarding high expectations, school climate, basic skills instruction, and monitoring student progress. The lowest overall rating revealed…

The article begins by setting out a confluence of events that initiated a proposal to attract students from Taiwan to a new EdD program in Australia, and then explores the tensions and congruities that ensue from this scenario. The main tensions and congruities revolved around issues of standards, quality, English-language levels, profit motives,…

This article discusses the value and feasibility of carrying out evaluation research on teacher development and uses as points of reference the author's experiences in two countries, Sri Lanka and Mexico. In Sri Lanka, an evaluation study was designed to understand the effectiveness and costs of teacher development at the elementary level linking…

Analyzes the impact of recent policy developments in the USA associated with school accountability according to the best interests of the student. With the mandated implementation of the US federal law entitled the No Child Left Behind Act approaching, minimal attention has been afforded to the complex ethical dimensions associated with policies…

Currently, there has been substantial interest, in Australia and internationally, in policy activities related to outcomes-based educational performance indicators and their link with growing demands for accountability of teachers and schools. In order to achieve a fair comparison between schools, it is commonly agreed that a correction should be…

Teaching quality emerged as a significant issue in higher education during the 90s. This led to the implementation of numerous quality control, assurance and enhancement schemes as institutions attempted to stay abreast of demands from various stakeholders in a rapidly changing educational environment. More recently, with the establishment of the…

For anyone in a leadership position, responsible for the performance of others, there is always an obvious concern with the quality of the work performed and the adherence to the mission, vision, values and culture of the organization. Traditional methods of assuring quality performance include some form of performance appraisal, giving feedback…

This article is a study of conflicting voices inside an alternative high school in Arizona. Voices of alternative schools are, quite often, not included in the discourse of curriculum reform even though the number of alternative schools is growing every year. Bakhtinian novelness of polyphony, chronotope, and carnival are incorporated into an…

Is it possible for principals/heads to be effective educational leaders? In this study, we compared the work of principals/heads in two policy contexts. In Policy Context 1, standards for student performance were common and well-established, and authority was devolved to the school level for reshaping the school to meet those standards. In…

This article reports on a study that explores collaborative structures of shared decision-making in an urban secondary school in the USA. The data in the study came from unstructured interviews with 20 teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, a counsellor and 10 students. The interviews took place over a three-week period in June of 2001…

Evaluating schools has become a contentious issue in many countries. There seems to be a broad and growing consensus that some form of evaluation can on the one hand play a significant role in school improvement efforts, and on the other is also required to provide a reasonable level of public accountability appropriate in democratic societies.…

First Nations people have both a Constitutional and a Treaty right to education; however, the Crown's jurisdictional obligations to provide educational services have not lead to similar educational opportunities and attainment achievement for First Nations students as compared to Canadian students in provincial schools. Canada's Auditor General,…

Teacher education in music has its strength in knowledge and skills but is lacking an emphasis on the general purpose of schooling, more attention to the student, greater flexibility in the requirements in music, a focus on scholarship in and out of music, and access to the remainder of the curriculum. In short, the research data in education do…