Many teachers see major difficulties in maintaining academic standards in today's larger and more diversified classes. The problem becomes more tractable if learning outcomes are seen as more a function of students' activities than of their fixed characteristics. The teacher's job is then to organise the teaching/learning context so that all…

This paper presents the results of a job skill survey of Management Information Systems (MIS) alumni from a Northeastern U.S. university. The study assesses job skill importance and skill gaps associated with 104 technical and non-technical skill items. Survey items were grouped into 6 categories based on prior research. Skill importance and skill…

Much of VET policy internationally draws on a toolkit that has been seriously questioned for its logic, international relevance and effectiveness by considerable amounts of academic research. Reflecting primarily on our experiences of leading a complex, multi-country policy study, we develop an account that seeks to explore ways in which the…

"Strategic Planning in Higher Education" unveils a comprehensive approach to planning that has proved successful at Rutgers University. The SPHE framework, developed by authors Tromp and Ruben, provides a blueprint for planning--a step-by-step approach that guides leaders on strategic thinking; helps them align organizational goals with…

English Language Learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing group of students in American public schools. According to Payan and Nettles (2008), the ELL population doubled in 23 states between 1995 and 2005. Yet ELL achievement remains among the lowest of all students. For example, on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 72% of…

To help achieve President Obama's stated goal of ensuring that all students will be able to contribute as citizens in the U.S. democracy and to thrive in a global economy, the administration has designed a blueprint for a reenvisioned federal role in education through the reauthorization of the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act"…

This study compares alignment of the ACT and the American Diploma Project (ADP) national college readiness standards sets with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English language arts and reading (TEKS ELAR) standards for grades 9-12 and analyzes their cognitive complexity. It finds that a majority of the content in the ACT and ADP…

In alignment studies, expert raters evaluate assessment items against standards and ratings are used to compute various alignment indices. Questions about rater reliability, however, are often ignored or inadequately addressed. This paper reports the results of a generalizability theory study of cognitive demand and rigor ratings of assessment…

The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) supports the development and implementation of learning and assessment systems to radically reshape the education enterprise in participating States in order to improve student outcomes. SBAC believes that the current "drop from the sky" approaches to educational testing are ineffective…

With the creation of the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC), New Leaders for New Schools hoped to accomplish two broad and ambitious goals. The first was to identify and reward leadership practices driving significant achievement gains in high-poverty, urban schools. The second was to learn from those practices and make them more widely…

In Kansas, local and state adult education leaders realized that leadership standards cannot be ignored if adult education is to be perceived as a professional discipline within the state's larger educational community. The perfect opportunity to study and develop leadership standards for adult education directors and coordinators presented itself…

Teacher quality is the most crucial component in promoting student learning. For all the controversy about No Child Left Behind, one underlying emphasis of the federal law that is irrefutable is the importance placed on teacher quality. Therefore, a school organization committed to excellence must recruit and select outstanding teachers. The Obama…

To enhance state-level adult education and employment policy, in 2007 the Joyce Foundation began the Shifting Gears (SG) initiative to assist six states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin) to integrate adult education, workforce development and postsecondary education policies and improve job opportunities for low-skilled…

This Research & Policy Brief addresses the aspect of the teacher support system that is perhaps the most important and often the most weakly implemented: teacher learning and development. This brief includes the following to help state and district leaders select professional learning activities that are worth the allocation of scarce resources:…

Problem Statement. The literature on education in Cameroon suggests that there is a deep-rooted history of resistance to educational reform and harmonization both at the K12 and higher education levels. Attempts by political and educational leaders to reform and harmonize the two very distinct systems of education, inherited from former colonizers…