This paper focuses on agency in language policy change. The object of the analysis is the processes of bilingualization of signage in three European towns. Located in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Wales, the towns differ in various respects, including the extent to which signage language policies have faced opposition and threatened social…

This article examines the complex development and contradictory current state of affairs of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland. Rather than presenting a harmonious picture of the Finnish ECEC system, the authors have chosen to look at the problematic way in which national policies concerning ECEC have been interpreted and…

In today's tough economy, students and parents alike are looking for ways to save on college tuition. With sticker prices well into the tens of thousands per year at any private liberal-arts institution, the prospect of shaving a year off the typical four-year journey is an added attraction at a number of colleges, like Franklin & Marshall,…

This article examines the policy implications embedded in the questions asked by music educators that frame the historical progress and evolution of music education. Further, this article posits that while these questions have seemingly worked toward solutions to problems, they have systematically preserved the inequalities we intended to…

Schedule redesign is only one small part of the much larger approach to turning around low-performing schools. Even so, most states' No Child Left Behind waiver applications show a disappointing lack of detail on learning time. While they've done some careful thinking about schedule redesign, states must continue to think critically and…

This paper uses Fraser's (1999) concept of social justice as comprising both redistribution and recognition as a frame to interrogate two "Area-Based Curriculum" projects running since 2008 in Manchester and Peterborough schools. It argues that historic concerns about working with "the local" in cross-curricular activities has…

The role of languages is a central issue in deaf education. The function of sign languages in education and deaf students' opportunities to develop linguistic abilities in both sign languages and the dominant language(s) of a society are key considerations (Hogan-Brun 2009; Reagan 2010, 53; Swanwick 2010a). Accordingly, what Kaplan and Baldauf…

In Portugal, as elsewhere, the rhetoric of managerialism in higher education is becoming firmly entrenched in the governmental policymakers' discourse and has been widely disseminated across the institutional landscape. Managerialism is an important ideological support of New Public Management policies and can be classified as a narrative of…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers, and the promotion of competition are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

Innovation inducement prizes have been used for centuries. In the United States, a recent federal policy change--the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010--clarified and simplified a path by which all federal agencies can offer innovation inducement prizes, thus intensifying interest in how government agencies can most effectively design…

This article addresses an issue that has not been well explored in empirical research, namely whether local education agencies (districts) have an impact on student learning. We assumed that local district effects on learning would be largely indirect, mediated by how teachers work together in schools (in professional communities) and the quality…

Applying a Multiple Streams framework, the article documents the development and ultimate undoing of what became known as the national sales tax plan for education. The authors identify four factors that coalesced to lead the Nixon administration to propose replacing local property taxes with a federal value-added tax to finance K-12 education.…

Not for the first time in its history, the UK Higher Education sector finds itself in a position of significant financial constraint. The current coalition Government's actions to address the budget deficit have led to sweeping cuts across many public sector departments, but it is higher education that has seen the most draconian reduction in…

Several German states recently introduced tuition fees for university education. We investigate whether these tuition fees influence the mobility of university applicants. Based on administrative data of applicants for medical schools in Germany, we estimate the effect of tuition fees on the probability of applying for a university in the home…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) holds public schools accountable for the academic achievement of student subgroups that are larger than the state minimum-subgroup-size threshold. In 2004, California added students with disabilities to the NCLB subgroup categories. Using a regression discontinuity design, this study compared the academic…