Assessment has long been at the center of education policy debates, and for good reason. The goal of schooling is to maximize student learning, and assessments provide a picture of what students know and are able to do. Assessments also have a strong influence on what goes on in classrooms. The United States is now poised to make the most dramatic…

Whether to adopt national standards and tests has long been a subject of lively debate in the United States. With 47 states now participating in the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and a commitment from Education Secretary Arne Duncan to allocate hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to the development of common tests, the country is…

This paper reviews the development of the public monopoly of degree-granting institutions of higher education in Ontario, Canada. It examines arguments for private universities which suggest improved accessibility, diversity, and quality and finds the arguments to be insufficiently strong. A recommendation is made for improvement of Ontario's…

The BC Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) has had a long-standing interest in measures of student mobility and the potential of the Provincial Education Number (PEN) being applied in post-secondary institutions at the applicant stage. The Admissions Committee of BCCAT included a project in its 2004/05 Work Plan to conduct a thorough…

The governance of community colleges in western Canada is increasingly influenced by the activities of federal and regional agencies, provincial legislatures, professional and trade associations, and advisory committees. Decision-making is increasingly centralized so that programs are standardized, procedures are routinized, and colleges lack…