This review examines four books that may offer some insight into what the discussion about educational policy, reform, and performance may look like after the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Collectively, "The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling" by Jal Mehta,…

The attainment gap associated with socio-economic status is an international problem that is highly resistant to change. This conceptual paper critiques the drive by the Scottish Government to address the attainment gap through the Scottish Attainment Challenge and the National Improvement Framework. It draws upon a range of theoretical…

By placing emphasis on equity and social mobility, the current UK education policy for England focuses on narrowing the educational attainment gap between more and less advantaged groups of young people--an approach that has strong parallels in many other Anglophone countries around the world. We argue that these policy and associated practice…

This article explores the considerable developments in both early years policy and in the provision of services for young children in England since 1997, noting the role that such services have had in informing the broader "Every child matters" agenda. Many challenges remain, however, not least the numbers of children and families who…

Relatively little research has explored whether schools differ in their effectiveness for different group of pupils (e.g. by ethnicity, poverty or gender), for different curriculum subjects (e.g. English, mathematics or science) or over time (different cohorts). This paper uses multilevel modelling to analyse the national test results at age 7 and…