The Investigating Quality (IQ) Project was conceptualized as a multiple systems approach to transforming early childhood education, care, and development (ECE/ECD) in British Columbia, Canada. Those systems extended from provincial government to local programs, from innovative policies to new approaches to practice. Fortunately, the tenure of the…

Despite being minority languages like many others, sign languages have traditionally remained absent from the agendas of policy makers and language planning and policies. In the past two decades, though, this situation has started to change at different paces and to different degrees in several countries. In this article, the author describes the…

In this position article, we explore what happens when school district policies regarding desegregation, accountability, and foreign language immersion education collide. Specifically, we contrast 2 immersion programs that experienced distinct outcomes as a result of the conflicting agendas underlying these 3 policies. One program, originally…

This brief explores three examples of state policies designed to help students and families cope with rising tuition costs at four-year institutions: the Wisconsin Covenant, the Georgia HOPE Scholarship Program, and the Indiana Twenty-first Century Scholars Program. Although the authors acknowledge the important role two-year colleges play in…

Since 2000, the European Union has given greater attention to lifelong learning, as expressed in the Lisbon presidency conclusions and the general objectives of the Education and Training 2010 work programme. In September 2007, these policy proposals were further strengthened with the announcement of the "Action Plan on Adult Learning"…

This article extends understanding of the connections between education, social capital, and development through a mixed-methods case study of the Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial, or SAT, an innovative secondary-level education system. The quantitative dimension of the research used survey measures of social responsibility to compare 93 SAT…

The National curriculum assessment (NCA) in Wales has evolved from common foundations into a system that is now distinct from that in England. The influence of the political and social milieu of Wales can be seen both in the distinctive features that have been in place from the outset and in the more radical changes introduced since 2002. In this…

Asserting that U.S. policy makers have much to gain from studying child care financing and delivery approaches in other economically-developed countries, this paper summarizes aspects of the organization and financing of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services across 14 industrialized countries as of the mid-1990s. The first section…

In this paper we offer an overview of reintegration policies in both Australia and New Zealand. We describe the rehabilitative practices of both countries, and their basis in the Risk-Needs-Responsivity model of offender rehabilitation, before outlining the recently developed Good Lives Model of offender rehabilitation. Our conclusion is that the…

This paper provides a picture of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), primarily Europe and North America. The paper's main objective is to present an overview of the major policies and programs in these countries, and to classify them by their most salient…

Modernising the teaching profession has become one of the main goals of contemporary educational system reform. The evaluation of teachers has been integral to the new teacher quality policies and programs. This article provides a comparative and critical analysis of the evaluations that teachers now confront during their professional careers.…

Successive governments in the UK have increasingly stressed the need for a more enterprising society. Much of the emphasis has been placed upon educationalists to introduce more elements of enterprise into the school curriculum at all levels, and new and innovative ways to initiate the subject matter is increasingly being sought. This article…

This paper offers highlights from the final report of Stanford's School Leadership Study, which should be available in January 2007. It discusses various policy and resource factors that enhance or impede the implementation of exemplary programs that develop and support principals. Among the research questions that guided this study were a set…