The late 20th Century saw the rapid rise of quality assurance and effectiveness measures in most industries and organisations. These trends were very much reflected in education at all levels. An associated emergent trend in primary and secondary education in Australia was growth in the use of standardised measures of student achievement that…

Teacher education in England has evolved to a practice-theory model, in which trainees on a one-year postgraduate certificate of education spend 24 weeks of a 36 week course in schools, rather than on the more traditional and comfortable, theory driven, predominantly Higher Education Institute (HEI) based programme. Partnership between the HEIs…

The number of international students in Japan has continued to increase at a rapid pace and has featured very prominently in the so-called internationalization of higher education. International students had been expected to become a catalyst for internationalization and university reform. Recently, however, concern has been raised about the…

This paper describes the moves towards greater inclusion in the Hong Kong education system and the problems that have arisen from those moves. It then describes the introduction of an adapted version of the Index for Inclusion, called the Indicators for Inclusion in Hong Kong, in order to stimulate greater progress. As the adapted Hong Kong…

In this article, the authors describe their efforts to improve the performance of their middle school students on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). As middle level educators, they knew that in addition to addressing the curriculum, they also had to address the psychological needs of their students. To administer a standardized…

Loveland (Colorado) High School is a comprehensive high school of approximately 1,500 students located 50 miles north of Denver. Two years ago, Loveland was not making annual yearly progress (AYP) in any subpopulation as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The scores of the general population were not much to brag about either.…

One of the current goals of public education is technology integration. This is witnessed in current educational literature, by the enormous sums of money schools, colleges, and departments of education (SCDEs) spend to purchase equipment and in the emphasis on weaving technology into the fabric of the educational curriculum. As the integration…

Technology integration is a three-pronged effort. Not only do teachers, no matter the level, need to know how to use technology, they need to know how to integrate it into their curriculum. These two prongs were a consistent theme throughout the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) projects. Add access to technology to these and…

This paper examines a US foreign aid project to promote use of new technologies in Egyptian education. Though the project sought to improve teaching and learning, an examination of implementation indicates how goals of Westernization ended up taking precedence. These included a focus on bringing Egyptian educators to the US and on showcasing US…

This article focusses on defining the Parent Academy. The Parent Academy is a deeply ambitious, privately funded project aimed at improving students' education by improving their parents'. Since Miami-Dade County Public Schools superintendent Rudy Crew launched it last year, TPA has reached tens of thousands of parents through hundreds of free…

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, as China's society and economy continue to develop and higher education undergoes further reform, higher education teacher training, which is crucial to building a teacher base in institutions of higher education and an effective means of tapping human resources, finds itself at an historic turning point.…

This paper discusses the contribution of international studies on educational effectiveness in the light of 4 papers presented at the new ICSEI Methodology of Research and Effectiveness (MORE) Network in Barcelona in January 2005 and published in this issue of the journal. A brief historical overview is used to provide a context for these papers…

It has been suggested since the early 80's that America's public schools are not meeting the needs of America's citizenry and that the schools are in need of repair. This paper describes a study conducted at Neville High School (Louisiana) in 1996-1997 and designed to examine the effects of facility renovation on faculty morale. Data collection…

This report examines both electric lighting and daylighting, listing criteria to determine the correct equipment for a school renovation or building project. Specific topics examine use of prismatic lenses; parabolic louvers; and indirect lighting, including the cost savings of using indirect lighting. The report indicates there is no clear answer…

An innovative school renovation program is resulting in new media centers for six elementary schools and four relocatable kindergartens. (Author/MLF)