Many schools around the world are struggling in the face of reduced funding and fluctuating enrolments. Often, the solution to this unhappy equation is quite simply to shut down facilities. But when all the costs of closing a school are considered--financial, material and human--implementing this policy calls for caution. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This paper examines the divergences between what educational policy calls for in South African schools with regard to language and learning and what takes place in schools. It argues that South African constitutional and education policy statements employ an idea of languages as bound entities and systems, and combine this understanding of…

This article examines how visual methodologies might be incorporated into educational policy studies. By bringing together theoretical perspectives on critical policy studies and visual methodologies, we aim to demonstrate the ways in which the visual can be an important tool to help us interrogate how knowledge is produced through the…

The curriculum policies for students with special needs across Australia have been reviewed. The Curriculum Framework in the Australian Capital Territory is used to inform their school based curriculum. The Northern Territory Curriculum Framework describes what learners are expected to achieve and what learners have achieved. The New South Wales…

Ask Antonio White what he thinks of Race to the Top--President Barack Obama's signature K-12 initiative--and the Florida teacher will tell you the competitive-grant program is a "difficult pill to swallow." Merit pay for teachers based partly on student test scores is "a joke," he says. He's also not a fan of expanding charter…

More than 90% of the nation's 1.2 million military children attend civilian-operated public schools. Education researchers, however, often overlook the educational experiences and needs of military children attending civilian-operated public schools (i.e., schools that are administered by and under the purview of local education agencies). This…

In recent years, interest has grown in using classroom observation as a means to several ends, including teacher development, teacher evaluation, and impact evaluation of classroom-based interventions. Although education practitioners and researchers have developed numerous observational instruments for these purposes, many developers fail to…

This study reviews the historical trend of college revenues and expenditures from a national perspective using primarily data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) as reported by the Delta Project for the years 1999-2009. Looking at trends related to state and local appropriations, college costs and prices, output, and…

Research from the Economic and Social Research Council programme on Pathways Into and Out of Crime prioritised young people's "voices" in exploring experiences of crime and a range of intervention services. Drawing on data from interviews with 110 young people, this paper explores their perspectives of professional assessment. Embedded…

In this paper, we provide a particular critique of policy-making processes related to addressing the gender achievement gap in the Ontario context. The focus is on tracing the effects of a neoliberal regime of accountability in terms of the designation of boys as a disadvantaged group alongside other minority groups who have historically faced…

The concept of development has evolved from an exclusive focus on economic growth towards an interrelated, even integrated approach involving progress across a range of disciplines such as health, education, economics and agriculture. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are rooted in this evolved conception of development. A concerted global…

The global spread of national assessment testing activities, and the growing pressure to move beyond basic measures of participation in educational monitoring, means that student achievement measures are likely to become increasingly relevant indicators of systemic progress in the developing world. Using data from the CESSP project in Cambodia,…

The primary objective of this article is to see if and how attendance policy influences class attendance in undergraduate-level principles of macroeconomics classes. The second objective, which is related to the first, is to examine whether the nature of the attendance policy matters in terms of its impact on class attendance behavior. The results…

Education reform advocates who base policy decisions on empirical research often face the argument that because background variables explain so much of student outcomes, it follows that policy interventions cannot be effective. This policy brief explains the logical fallacy in the argument, illustrating with two examples, one taken from the…

Government policymakers rarely consult with academic experts before formulating policy positions. When policymakers do seek out academics, they are often attempting to justify a position they already hold, not searching for objective analysis. Academics could add much to the policy debate if they were more meaningfully engaged in the discussion.