This paper focuses on school choice and the extent to which admissions to publicly-funded secondary schools in England address issues of equity and social justice. It argues that schools with responsibility for their own admissions are more likely than others to act in their own self interest by "selecting in" or "creaming"…

Measures that Matter was a joint effort by Achieve and The Education Trust to provide strategic and technical assistance to states in creating college- and career-ready assessment and accountability systems that ensure that all students graduate from high school ready to succeed. States face lots of questions and choices--and, frankly,…

The Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing (Missouri Academy) is a two-year accelerated, early-entrance-to-college, residential school that matches the level, complexity and pace of the curriculum with the readiness and motivation of high achieving high school students. The school is a part of Northwest Missouri State University…

The purpose of this research was to determine whether particular biographic and academic characteristics would predict whether an applicant would matriculate into and successfully complete an online secondary teacher certification program for Texas public schools. Extensive biographic data on applicants were compiled into a program data base…

The success of any educational reform depends upon the quality of teachers and in turn the quality of teachers depends to a large extent on the quality of teacher education and quality of teacher education mainly depends upon the teacher training institutions. Education is a nation building activity and teachers are the pillars of the educational…

In England, parents make "choices" (in reality, "preferences") for the state-maintained secondary schools they wish their child to attend. If there are more applicants than places, the school's published admissions criteria are used to give priority to applicants. This article examines how school composition in London varies by…

The lists of accredited secondary schools which are presented now for the fourth time in this bulletin are designed to meet the needs of officers charged with the admission of new students to secondary schools, colleges, universities, professional schools, especially schools of law and medicine, normal schools, etc.; of State examining and…

This report provides an introduction to the system and culture of the college entrance examination (CEE) of China. College entrance examinations in China (and in several other Asian countries such as Korea and Japan) are so important that they are commonly dubbed "once in a lifetime" or a "one-test-to-determine-a-life" for most…

As the definition of teacher quality changes with time, the selection mechanism of students into teacher education programmes may also change accordingly. In Taiwan, before the 1994 teacher education reform, selection of pre-service students was based solely on academic achievement. Afterwards, the selection was delegated to individual teacher…

This contribution is based on comparative case studies of secondary schools in England, the Netherlands and Scotland. The authors conclude that although opportunities for school choice are offered in a formal sense in each of the locations studied, in certain cases choice is not particularly encouraged. In order to explain this disparity between…

This study focuses on admissions criteria used for "comprehensive" secondary schools in London, UK. It was found that schools whose admissions were controlled by the local authority were more likely to report giving priority to children with medical/social needs and special educational needs than were schools that controlled their own…

This study investigates empirically the mechanisms behind the increasing grade point averages in Swedish upper secondary schools. Four hypotheses are presented as plausible explanations; improved student achievements, student selection effects, strategic behaviour in course choices, and lowering of grading standards. The analysis is based on…

This article focuses on student admissions to charter schools in the United States and to autonomous (foundation and voluntary-aided) secondary schools in England. Analyses of the admissions criteria used by autonomous and nonautonomous secondary schools in England revealed that more autonomous than nonautonomous schools reported using potentially…

This article examines secondary school admissions criteria in England. The analysis revealed that in a significant minority of schools, notably those responsible for their own admissions--voluntary-aided and foundation schools--a variety of criteria were used which appear to be designed to select certain groups of pupils and so exclude others.…

This paper focuses on the system of banding used in England by the former Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) in order to seek to obtain an intake to secondary schools that was balanced in terms of ability. The first part of the paper provides a brief history of the system of banding, how it was informed by verbal reasoning testing and how it…