Current educational policies show a growing tendency towards giving schools more autonomy and internal quality control. Accurate and comparable data on school performances are thus needed. In Flanders, PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS-R (Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat) have provided…

One of the most persistent inequities in U.S. education is the gap in math achievement along income and race lines. Yet some secondary schools beat the odds, producing consistently strong math performance with students who likely would fail in traditional settings. This report advocates that the math achievement gap is not the result of poor and…

Although there have been numerous studies that indicate the benefits of teachers and students working with scientists, there is little research that documents scientists' views of science education, science teacher preparation, and the goals of science education. Furthermore, little is known about how scientists' views of science education may…

Improving the quality of state-funded secondary school education remains a major explicit policy aim in the UK. The central means by which state-provided education in the UK is now regulated is through the system of inspections carried out by the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted), set up in 1992. The research reported in this paper…

In response to the parents' question concerning the good school for their child, Cowley offers a four-point checklist of the key characteristics that any good school--whether an inner city school serving disadvantaged children or a well-endowed university-prep school--will process. To illustrate each of these characteristics of a good school, the…

Proponents of standards-based reform claim that student achievement testing increases accountability and allows for greater instructional consistency. Performance across schools, boards, provinces, and even countries internationally can be compared and contrasted with the aim of identifying exemplary teaching practices. Teachers can also use…

When the first edition of "The Educational System of the United Kingdom" was published in 1991, higher education in the United Kingdom was immersed in an era of significant change. The 1991 report, which focused on changes to the UK system from 1976, recognized that major reform was set to continue into the twenty-first century. This has…

This article describes the background and findings of a research project on school effectiveness and evaluation in one regional education authority in China. The study was the outcome of a China/UK academic link aiming to improve research capacity and the evaluation of educational quality in China, funded by the British Council in Beijing, on…

When students already are achieving at high levels, it can be easy for teachers to become complacent. However, Mountain Brook Schools in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, has developed a culture committed to continuous improvement that has resulted in an excellent system becoming outstanding. The key is professional development. Professional learning…

This Supplement has been prepared to be used with U.S. Office of Education Bulletin 1939, No. 2, which is the latest complete bulletin of accredited secondary schools in the United States. It shows under each State: First, names of schools which should be added to the corresponding lists (both local and regional) in the bulletin; next, those which…

This generation of young people is on track to be less-educated than their parents--for the first time in American history. This, at the same time the world and workplace are changing dramatically and rapidly--when students, more than ever, need high levels of skill in order to compete. Advance Illinois has developed this report "We Can Do…

This report summarizes results from Austin Independent School District 12th graders in the Class of 2008 who responded to the high school student exit survey in Spring 2008.

Acknowledging the fact that teachers are at the heart of any educational reform effort, the European Union funded project EarlyStatistics aims to enrich European children's learning of statistics by offering their mathematics teachers a high-quality online professional development program. A central conviction underlying the design of the program…

In this article, the author discusses the new role assessment is playing in the higher education (HE) arena. Highlighted are the feelings of higher education faculty who observe the lack of preparation of students entering HE, and the fact that in introductory courses they are often teaching the skills--writing, critical thinking, basic…

The increased marketisation and privatisation of schooling in economically developing countries struggling to achieve Education for All and Millennium Development Goals warrants a focused examination of the phenomenon. However, there is little work on the nature and extent of private provision in countries that, on the one hand, are striving to…