The PISA 2009 data (in reading) investigated the effectiveness of one year of schooling in seven countries: Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Canada, and Brazil. We used an instrumental variable, which allowed us to estimate the effect of one year of schooling through the fuzzy method of regression discontinuity. The analysis was…

Context: A growing body of work reflects the ways in which gender-creative and transgender students are ill-served by current social climates in the vast majority of public schools. Few studies have explored this topic from an educator's perspective. Purpose: This study was designed to develop a conception of the barriers and supports that exist…

As the charter school movement has come to scale within the United States, it poses new questions about how to govern public education. With a significant rural contingent, charter schools are no longer just an urban phenomenon. Partly in response to the growth in charter schools, Paul Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education,…

This research report investigates the links between formal, non-formal and informal learning and the differences between them. In particular, the report aims to link these notions of learning to literacy and essential skills, as well as the learning of second and other languages in Canada. It builds upon the work of the OECD (n.d.) and Werquin…

Private tutoring is a growing industry that is being transformed by an evolution from "shadow education" provision into "learning center" franchises. Traditional shadow educators closely follow the school curriculum, offering short-term homework help and test preparation. Learning centers develop their own curricular and…

Discusses four themes that capture the major opportunities offered by alternative schools and alternative programs as well as some of the problems associated with them. (Author/RK)

This document is a report of the first year's findings (grade 1) of a longitudinal 3-year study of achievement differences between students in new open plan schools and those in existing "conventional architecture" schools. When tests of reading and mathematics achievement were administered in two open plan and nine "conventional…

Canada's public schools may be neglecting average students by failing to give them the structure and care their parents think desirable. A "soft" form of school choice, such as British Columbia's traditional schools option, allows greater parental influence. As parents gain more influence in schools, they must take more responsibility…

The project attempted to discern the possible resulting effects on children and teachers from major structural changes in the design of classroom space. Three assumptions were tested: (1) children will assume greater initiative in resource use, (2) teachers get to know the children better, and (3) team teaching in open space classrooms contributes…

Two open plan elementary schools were chosen together with the two traditional schools that most matched in size, location, and socioeconomic backgrounds of pupils; and standardized tests of curiosity and creativity were administered to students in grades 2 and 5. The results of the analyses show that some differences exist on a few of the tests…

This study was designed to test four groups of pupils entering the second grade in the York County School Board area--two groups in open schools and two in traditional schools--chosen because of the similarity in the schools' size and location and in the socioeconomic status of the pupils. The students were tested once each year for three years…

Teachers conducting more open programs and/or teaching in architecturally open schools had significantly more positive attitudes towards education, teaching, pupils, and educational innovation than did teachers conducting less open programs and/or teaching in architecturally closed or partially closed schools. This apparently reflects more…

This book argues that the Canadian public higher education system should return to the principles of a classical tradition of liberal education, abandoning the experimentation in school curricula and teaching methods of the last three decades. Taking as its point of departure the Ontario government's initiatives concerning destreaming and the…

To assess the educational effectiveness of open plan schools, a standardized test of reading, spelling, and mathematics achievement was administered to grade 2 pupils in two open plan and ten conventionally constructed schools. Scores on all three measures, plus the average attained scores on an academic ability test, were not significantly…

In the spring of 1973, a standardized test of reading and mathematics skills was administered to 564 grade 3 pupils distributed among two open plan schools (155 pupils) and seven conventionally constructed schools (409 pupils). The groups were matched on IQ, geographic location, the academic qualifications of their teachers, and average class…