Studies have shown that teachers' beliefs influence their assessment practices. However, the overarching framework of those beliefs in relation to teachers' classroom assessment confidence has been largely unexamined. This research explored teachers' conceptions of assessment and their confidence regarding the implementation of sound classroom…

This study presents Arizona's innovations in academic accountability policy and academic accountability frameworks for alternative schools. A timeline of statutes and regulations including the State Board of Education approved alternative school definition provides Arizona's context for alternative school accountability policy and frameworks.…

This discussion encompasses the specifics of a partnership between leading U.S. foundations---the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation. This analysis…

Teacher assessment literacy has become a central priority across many educational systems in North America and elsewhere in response to growing accountability demands. Although many scholars have aimed to measure teacher assessment literacy, recent research has identified that current assessment literacy instruments do not fully reflect current…

Efforts to promote corporate societal and environmental accountability (SEA) should be informed by an understanding of stakeholders' attitudes toward enhanced accountability standards. However, little is known regarding current attitudes on this subject or the determinants of these attitudes. To address this issue, this study examines the…

Although a growing body of work addresses the current role of neoliberalism in displacing democratic equality as a goal of public education, attempts to parse such impacts rarely draw from historical accounts. At least one tenet of neoliberalism--the application of business models to public institutions--was also pervasive at the turn of the 20th…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), federal education mandates will be decreasing, which means states will have more flexibility and authority than they've had in decades. State education agency (SEA) leaders are confronting great change and great opportunity as many agencies move away from a focus on compliance with federal regulations,…

Over the last 40 years, American institutions of higher education have been encouraged to align with the private sector by policymakers, think tank experts and businessmen in order to become more efficient and more accountable. In a wider sense, this new partnership may be evidence of what has been termed "disaster capitalism." In…

Educational policies such as Race to the Top in the USA affirm a central role for testing systems in government-driven reform efforts. Such reform policies are often referred to as the global education reform movement (GERM). Changes observed with the GERM style of testing demand socially engaged validity theories that include consequential…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine first-year principals' sense-making about two potentially conflicting demands as they take over low-performing urban schools: the demand to exert control over their teachers' practice, and the need to build their teachers' trust, collegiality, and commitment. Design/methodology/approach: This study…

Over the past two decades, the percentage of American students with disabilities educated in general classrooms with their nondisabled peers has risen by approximately 50%. This gradual but steady policy shift has been driven by two distinct narratives of organisational change. The social justice narrative espouses principles of equality and…

A large diversity of theoretical frameworks exists in the physical education literature. This article focuses on two of those frameworks to examine their compatibility and their complementarity. The classroom ecology paradigm concentrates on the balance between three task systems, two vectors, and programs of actions proposed by the physical…

Over the past few years, students by the thousands have refused to take their state's standardized tests. This "opt-out" phenomenon has prompted debate in state legislatures and in Washington, putting states at risk of losing Title I funds. Advocates describe opt-out as a grassroots movement of parents concerned about overtesting,…

Transformational leadership has served as a model for positive, individual-focused leadership, based on its emphasis on motivation and higher levels of organizational performance. Change is a constant for faculty that become leaders within the Land Grant University System. Changes to governance and accountability of institutions and threats to…

This paper viewed the educational system as a complex whole and a huge endeavour with numerous challenges that have emanated from the dynamic nature of society. The perceived functions of education for a rapidly changing society, has placed enormous pressure on the policy and programmes of education, on the curriculum and the organization and…