Purpose: School district superintendents say politics is the number one factor limiting their performance, yet research provides limited guidance on navigating the political dynamics of district improvement. State takeovers and district-wide turnaround efforts tend to involve particularly heated and polarized debates. Massachusetts' 2012 takeover…

Mexico's implementation of mandatory teacher assessments in 2013 was part of a group of federal reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of state-run education. The reforms elicited strong opposition from key stakeholders. Building on the idea that policy capacities are the set of capabilities necessary to perform policy functions, we examine the…

This paper draws on data collected as part of a study of the discourses of teacher professionalism amongst union active teachers in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario. Interviews revealed a triad of influences on the professionalism discourses of participants: engagement in teacher associations, the larger policy environment, and…

The college union, having served as a thriving community center on college campuses for more than 100 years, is a compelling venue to discuss physical space and community. The purpose of this study is to understand how highly rated unions make meaning of community, to identify common elements of college unions that are evident in campus community,…

The purpose of this study is to investigate policy coalitions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at U.S. congressional hearings. This study is grounded in the advocacy coalition framework, which argues that advocacy coalitions are forged by policy actors who have similar policy preferences. To identify the coalitions, according to the policy…

This article presents the dossier, "Work in higher education", composed of 10 articles and discusses the changes that have taken place in the Brazilian labor world since the parliamentary, media and judicial coup that took place in 2016. It considers the hypothesis that one of the central goals of the coup was precisely the attack on…

Since 1970, with the passage of Act 195 of 1970, collective bargaining in Pennsylvania has been an integral process in public schools (PSBA Bulletin, 2010). The success or failure of that process extends beyond the contract's duration; it becomes engrained in the school's culture and is noticeable to those who work, study, and live within the…

As 21st century school systems continue to emerge, low-income parents will continue to regard public charter schools as the means through which their children have equal access to quality education. This report is a response to the National Education Association's (NEA's) policy statement on charter schools. In the statement, the NEA calls for a…

The media and observers across the ideological spectrum were surprised and, in some cases, disconcerted in July 2014, when at the annual American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Los Angeles, the union's leadership team announced that its Innovation Fund grants of $20,000 to $30,000 were going to be made available to state and local…

This article focusses on the evolution of the school governance model in Spain since the 1980s. In Spain and elsewhere in Europe, the state's monopoly over education has softened and new forms of educational governance have emerged. This has resulted in the decentralization of decision-making authority to individual schools, municipalities, and…

This paper defines the European Students' Union (ESU) opinions on the topics related to internationalisation and learning mobility. This document is both an advancement and a cohesive overview of ESU's existing positions on internationalisation and mobility in higher education. This paper offers both definitions and elaborations on relevant policy…

The author estimates the impacts of the local rate of unemployment and the Great Recession on the quit and graduation rates of the U.S. construction trade apprentices over the 2001-2014 period. Trade union participation in training sponsorship had a strong influence on attrition rates. The impacts of the business cycle and the Great Recession on…

Drawing on data from a larger doctoral study, this paper specifically explores influences on the discourses of professionalism amongst a sample of highly engaged teachers within the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). The study is rooted in the assumption that discourse takes shape within a highly politicized system of socialization…

State education rankings published by "U.S. News & World Report," "Education Week," and others are based partly on achievement tests, which measure student learning, and partly on other factors not directly related to student learning. These rankings are aggregated in a way that provide misleading results by: (1) ignoring…

In this report, Mike Day and Jim Dickinson look at the past, present and future of student unions. Although almost every university has a students' union, there is little research or reliable data on their form, role or successes. They are often seen and judged through a 'student politics' lens and face criticism for being too radical, not radical…