The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. This issue is the "50th Anniversary Edition." Contents include: (1) IDRA Milestones Across Five Decades to…

The new student loan repayment plan formally proposed by the Biden administration would let borrowers make lower payments and have remaining loans forgiven sooner than under current plans. Under the proposed income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, most undergraduate borrowers with typical debt levels--and nearly 90 percent of those with certificates…

This case describes an ongoing system reform effort to transform the learning experiences of young people in British Columbia through changes to curriculum and graduation requirements. Over the past decade, the province of British Columbia has undergone substantial reform to its central curriculum and assessment framework. Interlinked with this…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to examine the power differentials that manifest within Kansas public higher education due to policies surrounding territory assignments and degree offerings for Kansas two-year community and technical colleges. The study provides insight into the differential effects of these policies among different…

In recent years, a wave of science of reading (SOR) reforms have swept across the nation. Although advocates argue that these are based on science-based research, SOR remains a contested and ambiguous notion. In this essay, Elena Aydarova uses an anthropology of policy approach to analyze advocacy efforts that promoted SOR reforms and legislative…

A critical review of the nature of education as a universal right in peripheral societies, based on the analysis of the social and cultural circumstances that permeate the learning experience of the written Portuguese language in Brazilian schools. The concept of cultural bilingualism is defended as necessary in facing the demand for…

The critical role of the educational sector in improving and reforming society and the world has aroused the interest of governments and agencies to exert substantial financial resources to reduce the financial burden of parents in educating children and attaining a holistic approach to national development. This paper evaluates the impact of…

Governments in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are expanding access to high school education, which is a perpetuation of the previous focus on basic education. This study applies qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) using data from seven countries from 2010 to 2020 to examine the potential conditions of fee-free policies at the high school level. Five…

Local education agencies (LEAs) continue to use value-added models (VAMs) for teacher evaluation policies and purposes, often with consequences attached. Although the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides more flexibility to LEAs, few have discontinued VAM use, suggesting they interpret VAMs as a valid measure of teacher effectiveness. In…

This paper addresses policy effects of international mobility in developing countries. It proposes a multilevel approach to study research training policies, specifically focusing on international mobility schemes as capacity-building instruments, where effects need to be identified at both individual and organizational levels. The paper asserts…

Despite teachers being centrally implicated in teacher evaluation policy reform, we know little about the effects of its policies and procedures on teachers' work in their school district, and we see limited discussion about the possibility of teachers as policy actors to reflect upon and possibly improve or overcome teacher evaluation. Using data…

Performance funding policies are politically popular, however research on performance funding has shown that these policies are ineffective and can have unintended negative consequences, particularly for lower-resourced institutions and underserved students. The purpose of this study was to determine if the Montana University System performance…

This study aimed to widen the understanding of the need for Black males in public schools, the critical factors related to their underrepresentation, and the reasons they stay in the teaching profession. The study explored what attracts Black male teachers to the teaching profession, what keeps them in the profession, what strategies can be…

This paper explores contemporary Irish social policy for family caregivers with specific focus on the dynamic between the individual, the family and the state in terms of the social contract for care provision for people with intellectual disability. Drawing from Bacchi's analytical framework (Bacchi, 2009), the Irish National Carers' Strategy is…

Despite the explosion of global citizenship education in Vietnam in the past few years, there is no consensus on what the concept actually means. Through discourse analysis of both the state and non-state actors, this article maps the frictions in global citizenship discourses in Vietnam. Behind the shared call for global citizenship education…