Educators who recognize the need to clarify their programs' goals have focused much effort over the past decade on learning outcome statements that summarize complex academic ideas in succinct terms. But have the projects gone far enough? While faculty have worked to demystify disciplines and programs, the words they use still come across as…

The distinction between external assessment and internal assessment underpins a major reform to vocational qualifications underway in England. To be approved by the Department for Education, vocational qualifications must now include a minimum proportion of external assessment, regardless of subject. This paper discusses the nature and…

Susan Albrecht's career has spanned more than 40 years. During those years she has served as an English teacher, school psychologist, behavior consultant, coordinator of services, and special education faculty member. Her contributions to the field include leadership positions with the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders. Susan shared…

The school curriculum and teacher professional standards in Aotearoa New Zealand emphasise culturally responsive pedagogies for Maori learners. However, there is a gap between rhetoric and practice. Drawing on expert-interview methodology, and based on an interview with Tamsin Hanly about complex curriculum issues, this interview article seeks to…

In almost any conversation about accountability for private schools, accountability for public schools is assumed. This is a dangerous myth. By assuming that the edifice that states and the federal government have created over the past several decades actually holds schools accountable, school choice advocates immediately find themselves in an…

Vocational education is supposed to improve work and employment skills, but many of the vocational courses developed in schools and colleges after the collapse of industrial apprenticeships in the 1970s have not offered real opportunities for young people in the labour market. Instead, a succession of new qualifications was introduced, which…

In this commentary, we revisit "NCLB and the Demand for Highly Qualified Teachers: Challenges and Solutions for Rural Schools," an article we published in this journal in 2005. We consider the predictions we made then about the impact of the Highly Qualified Teacher mandate on special education teacher (SET) shortages in rural states and…

This commentary discusses three articles (Jukes et al., 2017, McCoy et al., 2017, and Aber et al., 2017), which respectively focus on Kenya, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They all cite poor educational outcomes as a key motivation for developing and implementing new programs, and all three articles provide helpful evidence…

This article presents an interview with Tammy Kenney, who teaches a yoga-Pilates class in several different gyms. In this interview, Kenney talks about her career as a group fitness instructor and gives her best advice for someone who wants to teach group fitness.

In the online interview presented in this article, two Korean counselors offer comments to questions regarding issues faced at a Korean University. They reflected on their roles and some of the many topics faced that included: (1) student misunderstanding about counseling needs, and how counseling questionnaires and the counselor helps them; (2)…

Despite the fact that students are often articulate about qualifications policy matters, their perspectives are rarely listened to. This is because governments shape qualifications policy according to pre-set beliefs and are unwilling to countenance dissonant or outsider views. Using the Diploma qualification and inclusion of vocational…

With its October 2014 day-long conference on competency-based education and Higher Education Innovation Challenge (HEIC), the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) is creating a space in which New England states and institutions can wrestle with the critical issues driven by abundant information. The HEIC lists multiple areas where the…

Jackson and Scheel aptly elucidate the relevance of master's level counselor training programs for counseling psychology doctoral training programs, highlighting key antecedents of the current critical period in our relationship. Counseling psychology has an essential role in the professional lineage of counseling master's programs. Master's…

Bridid M. Burke poses an interesting question: Is requiring high-stakes language proficiency tests really going to improve world language education? In her article, Dr. Burke shares testimonials from "several promising student teachers" [whose] dreams of being French, German, or Spanish teachers [were] crushed" based on not…

This Summer 2013 issue of "Voices in Urban Education" presents an interview with Lucy Keaton, appointed in February 2013 as the first assistant superintendent for the English Language Learner program at the Clark County (Nevada) School District (CCSD), which includes Las Vegas and contains more than half of Nevada's public schools. The…