Kappan's editor talks with political scientist Sara Dahill-Brown about the new realities of educational decision making under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which follows nearly two decades of strong federal influence over K-12 policies at the state and district levels. Rather than promoting one-size-fits-all approaches to school improvement,…

England and Wales since 2010, this article presents issues faced by teachers of art and design and their responses in practice. The current insistence on transparency in education emerges through policy that audits performativity, in a limiting skills bank. Practitioners in art and design are particularly affected by what I term 'the…

Teacher education exists today in a context of rapid globalization, which affects the systems in which future teachers will work, the governance of teachers' work, the students teachers will be teaching, as well as the policies, programs, curricula and students in teacher education itself. Several ideas recently have gained traction…

Over the last 2 decades, policymakers' standards-based accountability reforms in the United States, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, have fundamentally changed public schooling in general and kindergarten specifically. As this has occurred, little is known about how families make sense of these changes in schooling. By sharing findings from a…

Whole-school reform models frequently include instructional coaching, yet instructional coaches typically spend relatively little time working with teachers on instruction. Using survey and interview data from district leaders, school administrators, and instructional coaches in one urban school district, this mixed-methods analysis asks how…

Despite numerous education reform efforts, disparities between more privileged students and students from marginalized and minoritized groups still persist in U.S. education. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 indicates greater commitment of the federal government to advancing equity in education and gives state educational…

If the intention of South African education legislation is to professionalise teachers, and if this is seen as empowering them for their task, connected to quality education, then it is indeed a worthy ideal. However, pedagogical values have been redefined within a neoliberalist framework, serving corporate culture and lowering the pedagogical…

In many countries, education systems are moving towards a combination of increased school autonomy and intensified accountability. In the wake of that shift, decision-making at the school level has become paramount, and the role of the school leader has gained in importance. Despite these trends, surprisingly little is known about how schools and…

Accountability policies assume that educators will use student data to improve student learning, but data use in practice has turned out to be harder than theorized. The purpose of this article was to examine how science teachers in Grades 5 to 8 used data in their classrooms. Utilizing sensemaking theory, we found that teachers decided how to use…

The Pupil Premium Grant was introduced in 2011 with the aim to 'close' the attainment gap within education between children classified as disadvantaged and their peers. However, recent research has shown that this gap appears to be widening across the education sector. This article explores the reasons why the Pupil Premium Grant was introduced,…

Purpose: Concerns about variation in the quality of preservice preparation provided by many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs) has led to calls to use outcomes of program graduates to hold PPPs accountable. Little research, however, has assessed the degree to which different outcomes for PPP graduates in fact vary…

Every family deserves access to the information they need to understand the quality of their community's schools and to make the best decision about their child's education. School report cards are the primary way that states communicate the information that families want and need about schools, but too often, the report cards are more focused on…

All tax credit scholarship (TCS) programs are state programs. States develop program policies and requirements, including establishing the roles and responsibilities of scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) and participating private schools. The President's fiscal year 2020 budget request included a proposal for federal tax credits for…

Achieve high performance for all in your school. In "Achieving Equity and Excellence," author Douglas Reeves outlines how to make dramatic improvements to student learning, behavior, and attendance in a single semester. Study the mindset of high-poverty, high-success schools and follow their example to implement the equitable and just…

Prepared for a Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) Strategic Education Governance Learning Seminar, this working paper analyses the functioning of accountability mechanisms in the Flemish school system from a complexity perspective, particularly accountability of equity funding in primary and secondary education. The paper shows…