Qualitative manuscripts occupy a multidimensional world and can vary by their "latitude" (where they are with respect to the humanities and sciences), "longitude" (where they are with respect to the length and number of data excerpts), and "altitude" (where they are with respect to the level of theorizing). In this article, I discuss these 3…

Schools have long made use of digital technologies to support the co-ordination of management and administrative processes--not least "management information systems", "virtual learning environments" and other "institutional technologies". The last five years have seen the convergence of these technologies into…

The purpose of this article is to describe the process and development of English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards and assessment in Ohio and to discuss issues related to alignment. The article addresses the importance of alignment among standards, instruction, and assessment, as well as the effect of alignment on students' academic…

Clinical judgment is foundational to psychological practice. Accurate judgment forms the basis for establishing reasonable goals and selecting appropriate treatments, which in turn are essential in achieving positive therapeutic outcomes. Therefore, Spengler and colleagues' meta-analytic finding--clinical judgment accuracy improves marginally with…

This article proposes a conceptual framework to explain the adoption and diffusion of a national human resource development (NHRD) standard. NHRD standards are used by governments to promote training and development in organizations and increase the professionalization of practices used by organizations. Institutional theory suggests that adoption…

Quality Counts 2010 is the 14th edition of "Education Week's" annual report card on American public education as viewed through the lens of the states' education policies and outcomes. As in the past, this year's edition is built on twin foundations: (1) the detailed data collection and analysis of the Editorial Projects in Education…

Effective school leadership is key to students' academic success. But the development of effective school leadership has been seriously hampered by the lack of technically sound tools to assess and monitor leaders' performance. With support from The Wallace Foundation, a team from Vanderbilt has been developing such an assessment system, and this…

This paper draws on research that has recently been conducted in Australia on the possibility of formulating professional standards for teachers of English in primary and secondary schools. English teachers around the country have played a vital role in the project, writing stories in an effort to capture "accomplished" English teaching,…

The "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 crystallized the concern for accountability in education. National testing was mandated as a way to improve the "broken" educational system. Publicly funded early education programs were not spared from such testing. While the positive effects of high-quality early education on children's…