The intent and content of teacher professional learning has changed in recent times to meet the demands of performativity. In this article, we offer and demonstrate a pragmatic way to map teacher professional learning that both meets current demands and secures a place for teacher-led catalytic learning. To achieve this, we position identified…

In recent years, governmental policy changes have exerted significant impact on the structural transformation, role diversity and commercialisation of national quality assurance agencies in many nations. Due to policy change, ongoing structural transformation and emerging roles, four national quality assurance agencies in Australia, Japan,…

Given widespread acceptance of the role of teaching in improving student outcomes, it is not surprising that policy makers have turned to teaching standards as a lever for educational improvement. There are, however, long-standing critiques of standards that suggest they are reductionist and promote a dualism between theory and practice. Our…

School curriculum change processes have traditionally been managed internally. However, in Queensland, Australia, as a response to the current high-stakes accountability regime, more and more principals are outsourcing this work to external change agents (ECAs). In 2009, one of the authors (a university lecturer and ECA) developed a curriculum…

In many countries, policy makers struggle with the development of value-added indicators of school performance for educational accountability purposes and in particular with the choice whether school context measured in the form of student composition variables should be included. This study investigates differences between 7 empirical studies…

The continuing failure rates of change initiatives, combined with an increasingly complex business environment, have created significant challenges for the practice of change management. High failure rates suggest that existing change models are not working, or are being incorrectly used. A different mindset to change is required. The BGR…

This paper interrogates the case for improved and broadened public sustainability reporting by universities, and explores whether and how global performance measures capture the institutional attitudes and activities pertinent to universities' contributions to sustainability. The analysis explores all stand-alone, English language reports produced…

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Australian government's education revolution policy as promulgated in the media release document, "Quality Education: The Case for an Education Revolution in our Schools". It seeks to problematize the government's claim to marry quality and equity, via an analysis of the discursive…

Across Australia a combined government effort is underway to reform early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision. A National Law Bill passed in 2010 heralds a new legal, regulatory and accountability framework that embraces all types ECEC provision. As a result, service providers face rapid change to address a new orientation and higher…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

Accounting and education are both global phenomena, and there is thus an argument that accounting education should be consistent and comparable across the globe. However, accounting, and accounting education are all socially constructed and globally they have been influenced by their historical, social, economic, political and cultural contexts.…

The renewal of quality assurance in Australian higher education comes at a time when the higher education sectors in Australia and around the world are experiencing a number of key challenges. These include: ongoing decline in public funding of universities; the massification of higher education and demand for it during global recession;…

This essay is a critique of the scientific and policy rationales for transnational standardization. It analyzes two examples of policy export: early childhood standards in one of North America's oldest Indigenous communities and the ongoing development of international standards for university teaching. It examines calls for American education to…

Markets have a number of uses. One increasingly important use of markets by politicians is as a means of regulating the supply and distribution of goods and services formerly supplied and distributed by governments on non-market bases. The use of markets as a regulator of higher education is not novel. However, the increased reliance on markets as…