The specific problem that initiated this study was a continually high percentage of students not passing the mathematics section of the state mandated end of course assessment. The purpose of this study centered on determining whether or not laptop interventions, directed towards increasing student success on high stakes standardized assessments…

Assessing student learning is a critical element in today's higher education environment. Learning assurance programs seek to assess and improve the quality of student learning, and may employ both direct and indirect measures. In this paper, we describe a practical learning assurance assessment measure developed and used as a part of a broader…

Global university rankings are often thought of as games, defined by roles and rules that universities must play in order to confirm their legitimacy and gain visibility as actors in the global academic market. While some countries are well represented at the top of rankings charts, others are just joining the race and testing out different…

While the publication of school league tables is prohibited by law in Ireland, the publication of data categorising university placements achieved per school has become common practice. A central argument advanced in this endeavour includes the provision of information for parents. The views of parents on this issue have, until now, not been…

The National Urban League president and CEO Marc H. Morial weighs in on what he sees as the need for continued annual assessments of students, rejecting the course of opting out that has taken hold in some places across America. Assessment data provides students with the opportunity to receive personalized supports and necessary interventions to…

The middle-income trap is an economic phenomenon to describe economies that have stagnated at the middle-income level and failed to progress into the high-income level. Inspired by this economic concept, this paper explores a hypothesis: is there a 'mid-rank trap' for universities in the exercise to rank universities globally? Using the rankings…

The fraudulent claims by policymakers and pundits that the United States is losing its economic competitiveness due to a failing education system continue unabated. However, the latest data on competitiveness suggest that it is poor economic policy, not education, that is holding back the economy.

Ratings published by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) require selectivity in admission to educator preparation programs. NCTQ provides a list of citations to support the selectivity standard termed "strong support." A review of each citation in the list found little or no support for the standard. Original data was…

Decisions about progress through an academic programme are made by Boards of Examiners, on the basis of students' course assessments. For most students such pass/fail grading decisions are straightforward. However, for those students whose results are borderline (either at a pass/fail boundary or boundaries between grades) the exercise of some…

The primary aim of the paper is to examine how global university rankings have influenced the higher education sector in Taiwan from the perspective of academics. A qualitative case study method was used to examine how university ranking influenced the Taiwanese higher education at institutional and individual levels, respectively, thereby…

Despite claims made for them, many current education policies have perverse consequences. If all our children are to benefit from the good education they deserve, we need: forms of accountability that do not rely on school performance tables of test results; a focus on standards that embody high expectations for all; the urgent creation of a…

This speech, given at the 2014 Council for the Study of Community Colleges annual Awards Luncheon, describes three of the major changes in the sixth edition of "The American Community College". The speech also describes what those changes can tell us about the directions in which our colleges are moving and the ways in which community…

More than two dozen authors contributed to this special issue from 14 different think tanks, regional collaborative organizations, and institution-based policy centers and institutes to share the work being done to promote the community college agenda at state, regional, and national levels in the United States. This article synthesizes the still…

Since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was enacted into federal law in 2002, states have been required to test students in grades 3 through 8 and again in high school to assess math and reading achievement. The federal law also asks states to establish the performance level students must reach on the exams in order to be identified as…

In this study, we examine how the standardizing effects of federal and state education policies in the United States reflect particular ways of understanding the structure and function of education and schooling. This understanding impacts how policies affect schools and those who work and depend upon them. We argue that the disparity between how…