This occasional paper of the Centre for Education Policy and Practice outlines how the National School Improvement Tool, developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment is being used in Australian schools. The Tool is grounded in international…

The authors argue that the ongoing research by the National Academies, the National Research Council, and the National Science Foundation are imperative. The findings and recommendations on what the school systems of America must do to develop specific educational programming will position the U.S. at the forefront of the world's economies if…

What happens when teams from 57 cities building afterschool systems gather to discuss two key system responsibilities--improving afterschool programs and using data for informed decision-making? Lots of rich discussion. This report covers a national afterschool conference held in February 2013. It details what mayors, program providers, system…

The direction quality assurance and its ancillary practices is taking in the transformation process in South Africa is discussed in this article. The article argues that it is incorrect to suggest that the higher education system has been captured by managerialism. While efficiency is an important driver of the system, the imperatives of redress…

Intense opposition from colleges has severely weakened a plan that would radically alter institutional accreditation. The proposal would have created a national group to make accreditation a more uniform process with greater public involvement. A new proposal suggests a national body with much less power and fewer public members, much like a group…

This report evaluates 12 high schools in the New American High Schools (NAHS) program. Launched in 1996, NAHS is a U.S. Department of Education research project that was developed to showcase school-reform practices in selected schools. The report is based on a study that used NAHS schools as a "laboratory" for researching reform…

This paper evaluates the impact of the New York Networks for School Renewal Project, a whole school reform initiated by the Annenberg Foundation as part of a nationwide reform strategy. It uses data on students in randomly chosen control schools to estimate impacts on student achievement, using an intent-to-treat design. After controlling for…

From 1973 to 1978, the Rand Corporation conducted a national study of local public schools' responses to various federal programs requiring educational change--Title III of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Title VII of the ESEA, programs financed by the 1968 Vocational Education Act, and the Right-to-Read program. This paper…

Australia's efforts toward developing a national system of higher education through mergers of universities and colleges of advanced education is analyzed, drawing on official reports, views expressed by key individuals, archival records, and interviews with personnel involved in the merger of La Trobe University and Lincoln Institute of Health…

Scotland's "Assessment is for Learning" initiative (AifL) seeks to introduce a co-ordinated national system for assessment in schools. Formative assessment is a major plank in this. The initiative has moved beyond its pilot phase and it is intended that it will be adopted by all Scottish schools by 2007. This article draws upon the…

In developing countries ideology plays an important role in the political process, for the level of disorganization forces political leaders to look for support and loyalty rather than efficiency. (Author)

Aspects of recent changes in Australian higher education are explored, with focus on the Dawkins Agenda, which is related to the current political and economic situation. Questions about the success of John Dawkins, Federal Minister for Employment, Education and Training, in regard to higher education are raised (why he has been successful and…

In 1976 the National Institute of Education established the Research and Development Utilization (RDU) Program. This project was intended to apply research and development products to local school problems; to develop a problem-solving and product selection process usable by local schools and to organize a linkage system making national, state,…

Describes the means used and problems faced during an effort to implement, maintain, and improve a national program for disseminating training in educational administration to secondary school administrators in New Zealand's Central Region, an administrative area containing 80 secondary schools, by depending on the first trainees to train others.…

This article discusses the ten-year plan for the development of basic education in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has to meet a major challenge, which consists of reducing poverty among the population, reducing exposure to crises of all kinds, and reducing inequality between regions and between different socio-economic sectors. In order to achieve…