In 2003, leaders at the School District of Philadelphia, district CEO Paul Vallas and chairman of the School Reform Commission James Nevels, enlisted the help of the Microsoft Corporation in a bold effort: reshape the archaic 19th-century high school model to better prepare students, especially urban students, to live and work in the 21st century.…

Assessment-led reform is now one of the most widely favored strategies to promote higher standards of teaching, more powerful learning and more credible forms of public accountability. Within this context of change, higher education in many countries is increasingly subjected to demands to implement alternative assessment strategies that provide…

Taking the 2009 UKLA conference theme of "making connections and building literate communities" and recalling Hoggart's plea for literacy to be critically and morally engaged rather than merely functional, this paper calls for a reassessment of the pursuit of literacy in schools so as to connect the language of learning with the language of…

The de-valuing of social studies is becoming prevalent as schools shift emphasis to other subjects addressing national and state accountability. The teacher candidate perspective is presented from an original study regarding the de-emphasis of social studies in elementary schools (Author, et al, 2006). Data were gathered by teacher candidates…

This article provides a case of how changes in standards for principal certification--as required by the State Board of Educator Certification since its establishment in 1995--were meant to promote changes in principal preparation programs in the state of Texas. The examination considers whether the changes were significant in terms of intended…

The allocation of funds to public colleges based on performance criteria rather than activity or enrolment criteria is often described as performance funding. In the United States, performance funding policies have become a frequently used instrument of higher education accountability. The history of such policies, however, is a complex one, with…

Effective professional development can support efforts to increase rigor in one's school. From the authors' research on the schools that won the U.S. Department of Education's Award for Staff Development, they found seven key characteristics that were apparent in staff development at these schools: (1) A clear purpose that is linked to research,…

Along with radically shifting priorities and practices to put better learning first, recent experiences and new research underscore a second, closely related imperative for districts--that principals get the high-quality training they need to be successful as frontline leaders of instructional change throughout their schools. In fact, no…

Spurred by the promise of $350 million in Race to the Top money for improved tests--as well as an opportunity to strengthen bids for part of the federal fund's larger $4 billion pot--states are scrambling to join consortia to develop common assessments. Six state consortia are now engaged in discussions about common tests, and the multiple…

We selected five Chinese university-based journals and five Western university-based journals to examine the extent of contributions by editorial board members and faculty from the universities in which the journals are published over a 6-year period from 2001 to 2006. A disproportionate contribution of faculty papers was from editorial board…

Test-based accountability is now the cornerstone of U.S. education policy, and it is becoming more important in many other nations as well. Educators sometimes respond to test-based accountability in ways that produce score inflation. In the past, score inflation has usually been evaluated by comparing trends in scores on a high-stakes test to…

The evaluation of teaching has sparked much debate for many decades. There are several reasons why the debate about evaluation and ratings continues, but the underlying problems in evaluation are more complex than a simple, valid-invalid or reliable-unreliable dichotomy suggests. The issues are often buried beneath bipolar rhetoric that has been…

Right now, accountability is the elephant in the room for many engaged in lifelong learning. It is difficult to find fault with the persuasive, evidence-based case for promoting lifelong learning so lucidly articulated in the main report of the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning. "Learning Through Life" deftly combines rigorous and…

The challenges faced today by U.S. colleges and universities have been accelerated by the current economic downturn, but they are not the result of it. Consequently, we should not expect a sudden reversal of fortune when the economy rebounds. Changing demographics and spending priorities coupled with increasing competition and demands for…

What is a culture of assessment? According to this author, in a culture of assessment, staff members recognize that they must collect evidence systematically to demonstrate accountability to their stakeholders, and that they must use that evidence to improve. Fundamental to the concept is the author's back-of-the-envelope definition of…