Do the arts improve academic achievement? What does it mean to "teach" art? What should the balance of classic and pop be in the music curriculum? Should we encourage young children on the stage? How do we judge whether what a child produces is good? How do we justify the arts in the curriculum? What should be the balance between form and content…

This guide attempts to address an aspect of secondary CTE (Career and Technical Education) that has received little attention; the assessment literacy of educators. School leaders need to go beyond ensuring routine compliance with external and internal regulatory forces to identify ways in which CTE program teachers might better understand…

This study examined the correlations between two prominent family child care environmental rating scales, the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale - Revised (FCCERS-R) and the "Combined" Classroom Assessment Scoring System ("Combined" CLASS), both of which were used during the pilot study of Washington State's Quality…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to compare a new assessment tool, the SkillsUSA Connect Assessment with the NOCTI assessment to determine which test results in more students achieving success. A quantitative study, designed to compare test scores of students taking the NOCTI assessment and new assessments from SkillsUSA, called the…

This annual newsletter contains updates on the latest Community College Research Center (CCRC) research, new publications and details of upcoming presentations at major conferences. The feature article in this issue, "Improving Community College Assessment and Placement," by Thomas Bailey, discusses how the process of assessment and…

Although education policy has seen much change and activity in the last four years, newly elected and veteran leaders will encounter three key trends following the 2012 election: the federal government's lack of K-12 funding now that the stimulus dollars of the last few years have dried up; a split in the Republican Party concerning education…

The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has identified a common set of data that capture students' progress through the education pipeline at three key transition points: high school readiness, high school success/postsecondary readiness, and postsecondary and workforce success. For each of these transition points, key questions to be addressed by…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to observe the readiness of students and the internal environment of Malaysian public universities in the implementation of entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employed a quantitative approach and the main instrument used to gauge the entrepreneurship readiness among students…

The New Mexico Public School Facilities Authority (NMPSFA) is the agency responsible for administering state-funded capital projects for schools statewide. Post occupancy evaluation (POE) is the tool selected by NMPSFA for measuring project outcomes. The basic POE process for V. Sue Cleveland High School (VSCHS) consisted of a series of field…

While assessment is regarded as integral to enhancing the quality of teaching and learning, it is also a practice fraught with moral and ethical issues. An analysis is made of current assessment practices of teachers in South Africa which seem to straddle the domains of accountability and professional codes of conduct. In the process the position…

This article discusses the dynamic interaction between global policy and knowledge flows and two post-communist education systems--Hungary and Romania--with special attention to the appropriation of post-bureaucratic regulation tools and the structural changes enhanced by the knowledge transmitted by the Programme for International Student…

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the key assumptions underpinning the "Whole School Evaluation" (WSE) inspection policy developed in Ireland since 2003. Beginning with a documentary analysis the paper argues that the capacity to generate useful self evaluative data in schools was seen as being at the heart of the model of…

A solid science education program begins by clearly establishing what well-educated youngsters need to learn about this multifaceted domain of human knowledge. The first crucial step is setting clear academic standards for the schools--standards that not only articulate the critical science content students need to learn, but that also properly…

This paper discusses the challenges to the qualitative health research approach, under the regime of productivity that rules current academic evaluation in many countries. The analysis considers aspects common to several contexts, illustrating the discussion with the Brazilian context and, more specifically, within the dynamics of the collective…

Junior Certificate Technical Graphics was introduced in Ireland in 1991 and aimed to develop innovative problem solving aptitudes and knowledge of plane and descriptive geometry (NCCA 1991). Despite the philosophy of breadth and balance (NCCA 2004) associated with educational outcomes in the Junior Certificate curriculum, many subjects, Technical…