This document offers a brief guide to understanding Virginia's system for holding schools accountable for raising student achievement. Virginia's accountability system supports teaching and learning by setting rigorous academic standards--known as the Standards of Learning (SOL)--and through annual statewide assessments of student achievement.…

In this chapter, I attempt to theorize and historize the current global education reform movement which the Finnish education policy analyst Pasi Sahlberg (Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland. Teachers College Press, New York, 2011) has coined the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement), the "virus…

The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis study was to explore how undergraduate student government participants at a state university in California engage in decision-making in their official roles. This study focused on an auxiliary student government organization called Associated Students located at one of the twenty-three…

Improving the quality of charter school authorizing is critical for improving the quality of charter schools and the outcomes experienced by students and communities. As every charter school has an authorizer, improvement in authorizing has the power to be among the most significant catalysts in creating many more high-quality schools and closing…

This document records testimony from a hearing held to examine strengthening accreditation to better protect students and taxpayers. Member statements were presented by: (1) Honorable Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman, Committee on Education and the Workforce; and (2) Honorable Robert C. Scott, Ranking Member, Committee on Education and the Workforce.…

The challenge established by the persistence of student achievement gaps across ethnicity groups, socioeconomic strata, parental education, and English language learner status is the collective responsibility of federal, state, and local education agencies both public and nonpublic. This study aims to evaluate the extent to which the practices of…

This paper theorizes curriculum through the lens of power, the operation and embodiment of which we suggest is poorly understood in American education and society. We analyze curriculum as a form of governmental rationalization through which students and educators embody institutional practices and values. Through Foucault's analysis of resistance…

The number one quality business leaders look for in employees is creativity and yet the U.S. education system undermines the development of the higher-order skills that promote creativity by its dogged focus on multiple-choice tests. Stephan Turnipseed and Linda DarlingHammond discuss the kind of rich accountability system that will help students…

The media and observers across the ideological spectrum were surprised and, in some cases, disconcerted in July 2014, when at the annual American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Los Angeles, the union's leadership team announced that its Innovation Fund grants of $20,000 to $30,000 were going to be made available to state and local…

This paper attempts to present a critique of the concept and meaning of the term social accountability at university level from a critical point of view. The main objective is to analyze and re-build the term accountability in order to contextualize it for public universities. First, we present the importance of the idea of accountability in…

In this commentary, the author states that, as the contributions of the focal articles make clear, there is much to learn about how value-added models (VAMs) are actually used in a variety of settings. Indeed, it is important to remember that VAM scores are but one component of a complex evaluation system that can play out differently in different…

What is the potential of cross-border accreditation? Will universities go for a first or second opinion abroad? Will foreign reviews replace national assessments? What motivates universities and agencies for this extra work? What about understanding local context? Governments across the globe consider higher education a national public good. State…

According to the National Curricular Guidelines for the undergraduate-level course in physical therapy, the curriculum must promote the training of a generalist, humanist, critical, and reflective professional to develop skills focused on decision-making, communication, leadership, etc. Several methodologies are used in the teaching-learning…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore undergraduate international students' experiences in a flipped classroom environment in an Australian university. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 32 in-depth interviews were conducted with undergraduate international students at one Australian university by three researchers. Findings: The…

In an era of increased accountability for colleges and concerns about an affordable education, it is useful to understand whether students can adequately manage the debt burden they hold after leaving higher education. In 2015, Texas called for cumulative undergraduate debt to be 60% or less of public institution graduates' first-year earnings by…