When contemplating a major change to public higher education governance, state leaders should bear in mind several guiding principles. Such principles can ensure that current and future students will have access to an affordable, quality postsecondary education. They can also help ensure that the state's system of higher education meets public…

The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to chart the direction of the country's colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos highlighting the…

This year's submission of consolidated state plans for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) revealed two things: New ideas made it to the table, and many people--including those who had not before engaged in education policy conversations--contributed to the process. What is still hazy as the dust settles is whether this…

Today organizations have adopted a corporate university model to meet their training requirements, a model that adds value to the business in terms of revenue and profit, improvement in customer retention, improved employee productivity, cost reduction and retention of talented employees. This paper highlights the radical change and an evolution…

In the fall of 2004, an early childhood education center in the Midwest experienced a period of transition resulting from a significant turnover in administration and staff. Seeking strategies to improve and sustain a positive school culture, a newly formed Leadership Team looked to the business community for improvement strategies. The Team…

Race and gender disparities in school discipline and associated harms have been well documented for decades. Suspension from school can reduce instructional time and impede academic progress for students who may already be lagging in their achievement. This chapter offers a research-based framework for increasing equity in school discipline. The…

This chapter describes some of the major principles, practices, and processes involved in designing and founding a new community college dedicated to improving student outcomes by doing things differently.

This non-affirmative, bridging research program sees education as deliberation-based activity. Non-affirmative education is critical regarding policies and cultural practices, yet being mindful that education preparing for life, work and agency in democratic societies must create spaces for growth that are not only socialization or transformation…

The last five years have been active and noisy ones for the impact of technology and online education on the future of colleges and universities. Much has been said to disparage the traditional institutional model and champion strategies of disrupting or "unbundling" higher education, powered by the explosion of Web-based learning…

In her full essay exploring the Leadership standard in "Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Leadership," author Karen Seashore Louis offers keen insights into the question of how leaders affect the learning of other adults in a school. She writes particularly about how "school leaders can create a school culture in…

This chapter describes a model for continuous improvement that guides the work of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, or NCSU. NCSU is a research and development center funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, the research arm of the United States Department of Education. At the core of the Center's work is an innovative…

One consequence of globalisation is the demand on academics to better prepare students for work and life in an interconnected world through curriculum internationalisation. Many academics are hesitant, resistant, or ill-prepared to engage with curriculum internationalisation. This paper explores how this can be addressed by reconfiguring the way…

This article reports on the efforts of Christopher Cerf, the state-appointed superintendent of Newark Public Schools (New Jersey), to protect reform and build collaborative relationships. His tenure followed the controversial leadership of the former superintendent that had enacted a series of unpopular initiatives, including a new citywide…

The paper identifies three tools that support the administrative instrument of a state-based curriculum commission: compartmentalization, licensing, and segmentation. These tools channel the state's curriculum-making towards forms of symbolic rather than regulatory action. The state curriculum becomes a framework for the ideological governance of…

This chapter recounts the first 3 years of the Student Voice Collaborative (SVC) in New York City, a district supported student leadership initiative that engages high school aged youth in school reform work at school and district levels. Based on his experiences developing and running the SVC, the author identifies nine design and implementation…