Too many students spend their days in buildings with unhealthy air, have limited opportunities for physical activity, and have inadequate access to fresh water, nutritious food or a school nurse. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recognizes the need for schools to support the whole child and specifically acknowledges the importance of health…

Despite the growing descriptions of effective teacher community--and lessons about the conditions needed for them to survive--more research has been done on exemplars of strong professional community than on efforts to produce professional community where it doesn't already exist. Building professional community is important to school improvement…

State Education Agencies (SEAs) face challenges to the implementation of computer-based accountability assessments. The change in the accountability assessments from paper-based to computer-based demands action from the states to enable schools and districts to build their technical capacity, train the staff, provide practice opportunities to the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to highlight ways two novice secondary English teachers negotiated the politics of college and career readiness along with the literacy needs of students, in the age of accountability. Design/methodology/approach: This three-year longitudinal qualitative case study focused on two participants in English…

In this article, I offer an examination of findings from a recently completed qualitative study conducted in the south-eastern region of the US. In the study, nine teachers from three different schools representing two different school districts were interviewed twice about how they dealt with their students' Stanford Achievement Test 10 (SAT 10)…

This paper identified the role of electronic payment system in promoting accountability in government ministries as well as the challenges facing the implementation of e-payment in government ministries in Ebonyi State. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. The population of the study comprised of 112 accountants as…

The policy diffusion framework is critical to understanding the spread of policy innovations such as charter schools in the United States. This framework, however, is less instructive in explaining the state-by-state configuration of these policies. What explains the wide variation in charter school policy among states? This study addresses this…

Koretz, in his article published in this issue, provides compelling arguments that the high stakes currently associated with accountability testing lead to behavioral changes in students, teachers, and other stakeholders that often have negative consequences, such as inflated scores. Koretz goes on to argue that these negative consequences require…

Looking at the evolution of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) over the last 50 years, this paper argues that many of the racial, social, and economic inequities of 1965 that President Johnson was hoping to address have only been accelerated. It's not only time for a modern rethink on educational equity, but also a much broader set…

This paper seeks to clarify and spells out the responsibilities of policy makers to create the conditions for an effective accountability system that produces substantial improvements in student learning, strengthens the teaching profession, and provides transparency of results to the public. The authors point out that U.S. policy makers will need…

As we face increasing accountability in higher education, how we measure student learning should exceed the calls for an account of learning that places students at the center. Qualitative approaches to assessment and theoretical underpinnings gleaned from the qualitative research tradition may provide a way that we can support a more holistic…

Teaching requires the navigation of an intricate terrain of complex and often overlapping issues, many of which extend beyond the classroom setting. Teachers are uniquely placed to influence large numbers of learners beyond the delivery of prescribed curriculum, and therefore need to be particularly careful and aware of their professional ways of…

The Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act was adopted by the New Jersey legislature in August 2012 with the intent to raise student achievement by improving the overall quality of instruction. As a result of this act, new teacher evaluation systems, known as ACHIEVE NJ, have been introduced in school…

There has been perennial interest in personal qualities other than cognitive ability that determine success, including self-control, grit, growth mind-set, and many others. Attempts to measure such qualities for the purposes of educational policy and practice, however, are more recent. In this article, we identify serious challenges to doing so.…

Most district and school leaders understand that recruiting group members who have differing backgrounds, perspectives, talents, and personalities makes for good decision-making. Unfortunately, simply assembling a variety of top-notch individuals does not necessarily mean their talents and perspectives will be fully considered. Beth Strathman…