In the wake of the Spellings Commission, critical choices need to be made about how to refashion institutional assessment practices to respond to new accountability demands, without destroying the essence of accountability as a process of continuous improvement. This article begins with a brief description of the history of assessment, with…

This paper is driven by a simple question: what type of collective space is a classroom and how can it be imagined differently? Drawing on the social topography provided by Hardt and Negri, I suggest that schools have traditionally worked to produce either (a) a people; (b) a crowd; or (c) the masses. The problem with these forms of social…

Tony Blair's period as Head of the Labour Government from 1997 until 2007 has been heralded as a period of increased parental power and growing choice within education. However, beneath the rhetoric, Blair's legacy has been one of consolidating and re-inforcing previous Conservative policies that stressed parental responsibilities whilst operating…

In his article titled "A Quarter Century of Neoliberal Thinking in Education: Misleading Analyses and Failed Policies", Steven J. Klees provides a rich account of how educational policy has been influenced by a shift towards neoliberal economic thinking since the 1980s. He also effectively demonstrates the negative impact of this experiment in…

President-elect Barack Obama and his team started work this week on a transition that includes searching for the people who will bring to life his agenda of expanding preschool, improving the quality of teachers, and fixing the major federal law in K-12 education. Within 24 hours of his election, the Illinois Democrat assigned a team of campaign…

This article explores the formation of citizenship in Tamil-medium minority schools in Sri Lanka. It is argued that although the new curriculum aims to construct an inclusive notion of national citizenship, the influence of politics on education in reality creates dominant experiences of discrimination and marginalization. I argue, however, that…

This paper explores the ways in which Arab/Palestinian high school students in Israel negotiate their civic and national identities. The paper draws upon qualitative data that included semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 20 students in an Arab Muslim high school. It focuses on the ways in which they make sense of the notion of…

In 1994, South Africa moved away from its cruel and divided past to a future where its citizens would learn together, work together and grow together. In short we had to learn what it meant to live together by unlearning the ideas introduced by apartheid that permeated every aspect of our society. This required a new Constitution, brave and…

The 2009 Nevada Legislature approved Senate Bill 317 (SB 317) requiring that Nevada's public high schools, including charter schools, provide instruction in financial literacy. In an effort to assist school districts with implementation of instruction in financial literacy, the Nevada Department of Education assembled a task force (Financial…

The recent decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1" (2007) has forced school districts to begin thinking of new ways to integrate their schools without relying on race as the single factor in their assignment plans. While some school districts already have begun to…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore state takeover as a school reform strategy in a small rural school district. Since 1988, more than 50 U.S. school districts in 20 states have been subject to some form of state takeover. A number of factors generally contribute to a state takeover, some of which include: poor student…

"A History and Case Study at a Selected Tribal College" focuses on a tribally chartered two-year institution of higher education. The selected Tribal College serves Native American and non-Native American populations on two separate and distinct reservations and one urban location. This study surveys the history to answer basic foundational and…

Working with Richard Ingersoll, professor of Education and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) examined and analyzed data from the "Schools and Staffing Survey" (SASS), the largest and most comprehensive source of data on teachers, gathered from a nationally…

This study sought to compare the performance of students in the College Board Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) compared to non-AP students on a number of college outcome measures. Ten individual AP Exams were examined in this study of students in four entering classes (1998-2001) at the University of Texas at Austin. The four main groups of…

This article examines the role of the World Bank in advancing higher education sectors in the developing world, considering in particular the increasing power and strength of a global knowledge-based economy. Given the powerful role that intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank play in shaping global economic policies, the authors…