The article analyzes the construction of national reactions to a transnational higher education policy from the point of view of the representation of social actors in policy documents. The data are provided by the so-called Bologna Process, particularly the development of comparable quality assurance systems, and Finnish responses to those…

This article reports that education will be on the ballot November 4, even if the subject hasn't been on voters' minds much during the 2008 campaign season. The results of the elections are likely to have a significant impact on the way schools are financed, governed, and held accountable for the academic performance of their students. At the…

Ever since the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges issued the joint 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, two truths have been deemed self-evident: that academic freedom is vital to meaningful teaching and intellectual work, and that tenure is necessary to ensure…

In this article, the author provides an executive summary of the Toledo guiding principles on teaching about religions and beliefs in public schools in Spain. The Toledo Guiding Principles have been prepared in order to contribute to an improved understanding of the world's increasing religious diversity and the growing presence of religion in the…

Throughout the world, the demand for higher education is increasing exponentially, pushed forward by the realities of a global economy and accompanied by pressure to open up opportunities for prospective students from all backgrounds. The importance of a knowledgeable, highly skilled population has become clear and many countries have made great…

This article examines the development and the legacy of a policy making experience that was undertaken in Brazil from 2004 to 2006, under a project labelled "Educating for Freedom". The project sought to provide prison inmates with access to education. It was carried out by a coalition that comprised the Ministry of Education, the…

Teacher performance appraisal policies are a part of a global complex of accountability based teacher policies. This paper is a study of the Ontario teacher performance appraisal (TPA) system. First, the paper describes the education reform contexts associated with the origins and adoption of the TPA policy. Then the paper reports on the results…

It is often claimed that research on higher education has had little or no impact on HE policy-making, which is regarded as being largely driven by political ideology and the media and reinforced by little more than management consultancy. Recent higher education policy, it has been argued, is "a research-free zone" or at best…

Federal, State and school-based professional development has become a multi-million dollar educational enterprise in Australia. Yet there are no published models for the making of systems-level professional development policy. Reviewing the literature on the characteristics of effective professional development programs, this paper proposes a…

In 2006 the author was contracted to research possible approaches to a UK indicator of education for sustainable development (ESD). This article describes and seeks to explain the response of government advisers and influential members of the UK ESD community to the approaches he proposed. While the UK strategy for sustainable development called…

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has forged a fundamental shift of paradigm in program and public policy design. Whereas in most countries the needs-based approach has historically guided services and policies for children, the CRC sets out a new perspective based on the human rights of all children. This perspective…

Over the last five years, the announced new policy on drugs, cannabis in particular, has been the subject of much debate within the Belgian Federal Government and between the government and the opposition parties. Unclear policies and poor public communication from the Federal Government, the competent minister and the other parties caused immense…

At the end of 1998, the Chinese central government decided to raise China's level of participation in higher education dramatically. While the move was influenced by a combination of both domestic and external forces, it was a decision fundamentally based on economic considerations. Using the university enrolment expansion policy as an example,…

This Facilitator's Guide is based on What Education Leaders Should Know about Virtual Education, an online course designed by the Center on Instruction and the New England Comprehensive Center. The Facilitator's Guide demonstrates step-by-step how to build the course on a learning management system (LMS) and provides instructions on all phases of…

Presents eight definitions of "policy" that are implied in the literature and, by applying these definitions in three policy arenas, notes their differential effects in terms of policy questions, data collected, data sources, methodology, and policy products. (MLF)