In the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector there is a move to reduce oversight costs by reducing the frequency of quality assessments in providers who score highly consistently across time. However, virtually nothing is known about the stability of ECEC quality assessments over time. Using a validated measure of overall classroom…

Higher education institutions are expected to account for their performance and this increasingly includes strengthening community relationships. However, assessment of Higher education institution (HEI)-Community partnerships is nascent. In this study we seek to discern the situation of these partnerships and examine accountability for…

In this article, we draw upon notions of occupational professionalism and organizational professionalism to interrogate the complex, and sometimes contradictory, teacher learning practices that characterize educational policy enactment. We apply these understandings to the Growing Success assessment and evaluation policy in Ontario, Canada, and in…

Given the longstanding role of grades in education, and their increased use for high-stakes decisions including student mobility, admission, selection, and accountability, this paper presents a systematic review of grading policies across all 10 Canadian provinces and 3 territories. In total, 23 policies were inductively analyzed for their…

In this paper, I argue for more and better learning metrics in higher education, eventually through an international, comparative assessment of students' learning outcomes. Better learning measures may help to improve transparency in the system by addressing the information asymmetry problem. If not addressed adequately, the lack of transparency…

This report illustrates how four high-performing systems--British Columbia (Canada), Hong Kong, Shanghai (China) and Singapore--developed their teacher professional learning. The report and accompanying materials are designed as a resource for teachers, school leaders and policymakers wanting to improve teacher professional learning in their…

This paper describes how a locally developed school ranking system affected student enrolment patterns in British Columbia over time. In developing an annual school "report card" that was published in newspapers and online, the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute created a marketplace for school choice by devising an accountability scheme…

This chapter features a recent conversation with Dr. Arnold J. Love, a long-time proponent of internal evaluation and one of the most cited internal evaluation authors. In 1983, Love edited the first issue of "New Directions for Program Evaluation" on the topic of internal evaluation. He is the author of the book "Internal…

Background/Context: Meganarratives, or "grand stories," are composed of loosely held ideas about standardization, the rhetoric of education for all, the focus on individual success, and the appearance of representative diversity that rarely take into account human diversity embedded in deeply rooted value systems and authentically…

The author analyzes the growth and nature of internal evaluation from the 1960s to the present and suggests that internal evaluation has been on the increase because of its perceived importance. Although the 1960s were characterized by a rich intellectual development of evaluation theory and practice, the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s ushered…

The practice of handing out excellent grades to students who don't deserve them (grade inflation) is not a new phenomenon. Indeed grade inflation is among the oldest and most difficult issues to address in higher education. The author first studied the impact of grade inflation on student performance on standardized tests at the high school level…

It is important that counsellors provide evidence regarding the efficacy of their services. Although there has been an increased focus on generic outcome measurement of counselling programs and services, little attention has been paid to accountability issues for meeting the needs of diverse populations. This article highlights the increasing…

Despite increasing interest in the integration of evaluative inquiry into organizational functions and culture, the availability of empirical research addressing organizational capacity building to do and use evaluation is limited. This exploratory descriptive survey of internal evaluators in Canada asked about evaluation capacity building in the…

The Setting the Direction Minister's Forum was held June 8 and 9, 2009 at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton. It was attended by 820 Albertans and another 288 people participated through interactive webcasts at 78 sites across the province. The purpose of the forum was to present the Framework and engage a broad range of stakeholders in…

Accountability structures and processes have become such an integral part of education policy development and implementation that Ranson (2003) argues, "accountability is no longer merely an important instrument or component within the system, but constitutes the system itself" (p. 459). This argument is supported by the growth of an…