Anyone coming to the skills sector for the first time will swiftly find a baffling array of government "initiatives" and quangos. These latter bodies invariably claim to represent employer need, increase the status of vocational education or deliver best practice (delete as appropriate). The result is that the skills system as it…

It is said that "all politics are local," and the same can be said about advocacy and school boards. Advocacy is essential for retaining the progress that's been made in the past, and for building a foundation and network for the future. Advocating for preferred programs, curricula and initiatives has always been important. As a starting point,…

The evolution of multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) for both academics and behavior has reflected the diverse interests of those leading implementation efforts, the influence of various state and local regulatory requirements, and differing funding methods and priorities. These variations have naturally led to many different pathways for…

The purpose of this research is to examine how the topic of social media has been integrated and executed within academic institutions and marketing courses. An exploratory survey of marketing educators that taught social media in their course(s) was undertaken. The survey addressed how social media was embedded within an institute's curriculum,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of involving students and staff on school action groups, and staff and student experiences of reviewing local data and initiating school-level changes, to address bullying and other aggression. Design/methodology/approach: The authors draw on qualitative, process data collected at four…

Background: In 2009, the Obama Administration announced its intention to rapidly "turn around" 5,000 of the nation's lowest-performing schools. To do so, it relied on the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program to provide temporary funding for states and schools, and to mandate drastic, school-level reforms. Most of these reforms require…

Numerous authors in the library and information science (LIS) field have called for more authentic collaborative experiences for students in school librarian education programs, particularly experiences that partner school library students with pre-service teachers to collaboratively design instruction. The first-iteration, design-based study…

Purpose: One bad hiring decision can lead to low student achievement. Research supports that teachers are the most influential factor in student success. As a result, principals' current practice of hiring teachers based on intuition and likeability must change. Given the current high stakes era, principals need reassurance that the teachers they…

In the fall of 2008, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) commissioned a research study comparing the college access provider resources in Virginia to the access and academic achievement needs of the state. That study--conducted by researchers from the College of William and Mary and West Carolina University--resulted in the…

Assessments matter in education. Testing is nothing new; tests have been around as long as school itself. However, over the last 15 years, state assessments have grown to be an increasingly central, and often controversial, part of schooling. As states raise their standards, it is more important than ever to ask: What is a high-quality assessment?…

States, school districts, and schools across the country are increasingly implementing multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) to improve outcomes for all students. Kansas is no exception. The Kansas MTSS is designed to improve outcomes for all students by instituting system-level change across the classroom, school, district, and state. Such…

With the influx of online learning opportunities, online students and instructors are faced with a variety of challenges. Online students face the same challenges as do face-to-face learners, but by facing them in an online context, the interpretations of those challenges can lead to the success or failure of their overall educational experience.…

Access to geoscience data has been difficult for many educators. Understanding what educators want in terms of data has been equally difficult for scientists. From 2004 to 2009, we conducted annual workshops that brought together scientists, data providers, data analysis tool specialists, educators, and curriculum developers to better understand…

This paper investigates into the reading habits of the English medium private university students with Bengali medium background. It analyses the realities in the context, which are both nurturing the old and shaping new reading habits of the students. The data gathered by means of interview schedule have been analyzed both quantitatively and…

This special issue of "Advances in Engineering Education" explores recent developments in P-12 Engineering Education. It includes papers devoted to research and practice, and reports some of the most exciting work in the field today. In our Call of Papers, we solicited two types of papers: Research papers and Practice papers. The former…