Recent months have brought an ever-louder drumbeat in support of state-level participation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), with a weaker chorus calling for states to participate in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Despite the growing infatuation with international comparisons of…

This article argues that personalized learning has emerged in the last decade as a special instance of a more generalized response to the problem of the reorganization of the State in response to globalization and the end of the effectiveness of the industrial mass production model in the delivery of public services. The article examines…

School choice is most commonly considered in the context of private/public schooling and access to university. University entry remains a key element in family decision-making about which school they would like their children to attend. Debates about school choice are most commonly framed in relation to marketisation and the relative popularity of…

Transformation, social cohesion and discrimination in public higher education institutions in South Africa still continue to preoccupy politicians and academics. Evidence suggests a lack of progress on transformation and a pervasive racial discrimination on university campuses. The latter, especially in its overt form by some students in one of…

This article examines the foundations of gaming and related concepts, such as policy exercises and serious gaming, in a public policy making context. Examining the relevant publications in "Simulation & Gaming" since 1969, the author looks back at the development of gaming simulation for purposes such as public policy analysis and planning, and…

Our analysis explores the agenda for student learning communicated in interviews with school district officials from four Ontario districts. Using research methods drawn from collective action framing theory, we identified six core frames and one broader frame in the discourse on student learning: (a) measureable academic achievement, (b)…

The first thing many learn about international poverty measurement is that European nations apply a "relative" poverty threshold and that they also do a better job of reducing poverty. Unlike the European model, the "absolute" U.S. poverty threshold does not increase in real value when the nation's standard of living rises,…

Twenty years after the introduction of the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), BELMAS (British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society) held a discussion forum for academics, teachers and all those interested in education policy and practice. Was the ERA a success or a failure? The one-day forum of presentations and…

Purpose: Nursing home pay-for-performance (P4P) programs are intended to maximize the value obtained from public and private expenditures by measuring and rewarding better nursing home performance. We surveyed the 6 states with operational P4P systems in 2007. We describe key features of six Medicaid nursing home P4P systems and make…

What was accomplished and what was learned from United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) investment of over $733 million aimed at strengthening basic education systems in the developing world? These questions were addressed through an analysis of 286 documents drawn from 33 projects sponsored by the USAID between 1990 and 2005.…

This article reviews the current state of education reform in the United Kingdom and uses the BBC film "The Choir to explore alternative ways of improving the quality of learning and teaching in schools.

Since the mid-1980s, power sector liberalization has been embraced at different levels in the East Asian countries of China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The dominant rationale underlying power liberalization has been a quest for efficiency improvements, to be achieved by substituting private market activity for public regulations and by opening…

The management of change in English and Welsh schools has been an authoritarian affair seeking to impose rather than win consent for new ways of working. While no practitioner should challenge the fact of constant change in natural and social life, school staff have had little choice in the nature and direction of changes that have significantly…

This article is a case study of compensatory education as it was developed and implemented by an innovative urban school principal in the early 1960s. I argue that while the compensatory education movement was often marred by pejorative-sounding language and inegalitarian ideas, especially as it was shaped and expanded by policy makers and…

The process of retooling schools to prepare students for the Twenty-First Century requires that schools invest in technology resources and ongoing professional development for teachers to support the transformation of teaching and learning practices through technology integration. Technology resources are still considered to be educational…