This report is designed to familarize educators with systems of education in a selected sample of countries and with the development that has occurred in these systems between 1984 and 1986. The information presented is drawn largely from national reports and questionnaire reports summarized by member states of UNESCO at the International…

This paper describes the basic concepts of linking educational assessments. Although it discusses statistical machinery for interpreting evidence about students' achievements, this paper's principal message is that linking tests is not just a technical problem. Technical questions can not be asked or answered until questions about the nature of…

This report presents information on the status of arts education in South Dakota schools. Central to the report are the findings of a statewide survey of school districts that was conducted as part of a long-term project to advance the arts in South Dakota schools. Findings are reported in a number of areas, including budgets, staffing, course…

Ways in which the current economic crisis is articulated politically into the logic of Australian education are discussed in this paper. A major argument is that the dominance of Australian government by the ideology of economic rationalism has facilitated the development of a comprehensive, technical model for the reorganization of the basic…

Examination of the development of the standards documents of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) points to constructivism as the central view of learning that underlies the reform movement in mathematics education. Constructivism is a theory of how learning occurs. It assumes that knowledge is not passively received, but rather…

As part of a competency-based education approach, a module for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher training is presented that aims to increase the teacher's skills in involving learners in needs assessment (NA) and goal setting activities. A classroom NA is a survey of students designed to identify learners' educational needs and goals as…

Supplemental or peripheral responses by test takers are seldom used by examiners, but in this study a program introduced by Thomas Edison State College (New Jersey) to allow the examined student to provide feedback to the testers and graders was studied. Student comment forms were designed to enable the student to identify problems with the test…

This paper discusses the rationale behind information-based approaches to school and systemic improvement and identifies some alternatives to the quality assurance model used in New South Wales (Australia). It outlines the structures established for identifying and reporting issues and trends on a systemic basis and discusses some of the…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress' (NAEP) 1992 reading assessment was administered to nationally representative samples of 4th-, 8th- and 12-grade students attending public and private schools, and to state representative public-school samples of 4th graders in 43 jurisdictions. In Colorado, 2,897 fourth-grade students in 122 public…

Much of the reason behind educational reform is the belief that schools are not economically productive enough, that students are not learning enough for the resources invested in education. Other critics reject economic productivity as a framework for educational reform and support philosophical, psychological, or moral frameworks. However,…

This study investigated the effects of central control of mathematics content or examinations on classroom practice. Data from Population B of the Second International Mathematics Study was used to examine United States, British Columbia, and Ontario teachers' responses to questions concerning the amount of agreement among teachers about which…

Early intervention has shifted in focus to family centered assessment and treatment. The Comprehensive Evaluation of Family Functioning was developed to meet the need for accurate family assessment, but limited psychometric information on the measure is available. The present research investigated the psychometric properties of the CEFF with a…

Proceedings of a workshop held at the University of Stirling, Scotland, to critically examine issues in quality assurance (QA) in education are provided in this document. QA is the generic title for a series of business-management models that have been applied to educational contexts to describe and promote school effectiveness. Five papers and…

Issues in ensuring educational quality are examined in this document. Section 1 provides information for developing plans and targets. The following areas are highlighted: school-effectiveness research findings; developments in Scotland to improved educational quality; internal and external evaluation of schools; evaluation criteria; the role of…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined the perceptions of educational stakeholders in two regions of the Victorian Ministry of Education toward effective-schools issues. Data were obtained from a survey mailed to a total of 1,060 principals, school councillors, teachers, parents, and students in 100 schools--50 schools each from the…