This paper addresses the role of learning progressions in informing many international standards documents, discussing the affordances and limitations of building standards and curricula from a learning progression model. An alternate model, the hypothetical learning trajectory, is introduced and contrasted with learning progressions. Using the…

The release of A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012) provides the basis for the next generation of science standards. This article first describes that foundation for the life sciences; it then presents a draft standard for natural selection and evolution. Finally, there is a…

The Republic of Ireland is an island situated in north-west Europe inhabited by 4.6 million people, with 2.8% between 0 and 4 years of age with a disability (Central Statistics Office, 2012). The Irish Government funds the Irish health services, which, in turn, directly and indirectly funds disability services. Education and Disability legislation…

This article uses the developmental systems approach, an approach developed by M. Guralnick (2001), with an aim to assess and evaluate early childhood intervention (ECI) practices in Australia. The author explores the Australian national context of ECI and its complexities and conclude with recommendations to address (a) the possibility of a…

This occasional paper is the fourth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). This paper offers detailed insights into education and care service quality ratings for Quality Area 3 (physical environment) of the National Quality Standard (NQS). The focus is on ensuring the physical environment of a service is safe, suitable and provides…

Inquiries into vocational education and training (VET) systems are normally characterised by looking at institutions and steering mechanisms. That aside, however, it is culture which underlies both the practice and the theory as well as the policy of VET in various countries. Specific problems arise when it comes to harmonising VET systems through…

Inclusive education focuses on addressing marginalisation, segregation and exclusion within policy and practice. The purpose of this article is to use critical discourse analysis to examine how inclusion is represented in the education policy and professional documents of two countries, Australia and China. In particular, teacher professional…

The future role of teachers in Europe will contribute to raising the awareness of a new expectation of what it means to be a "European Teacher". If there is unity in diversity through national identities, the question remains: what makes a teacher "European"? Answering this unusual question, one encounters several aspects that…

This paper was developed at the request of the Organising Committee for the 27th Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation International Conference, in Melbourne, 2013. Its genesis was as a feature forum, wherein a panel of curriculum experts were bought together to discuss the emergence of the Australian Health and Physical…

Two well-known major frameworks to measure teacher performance and determine what a teacher should know and be able to do are undoubtedly the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and Charlotte Danielson's Framework for teaching. Charlotte Danielson has four major domains and National Board Certification (NBPTS) has five major core…

The purpose of this article is to examine recent changes in the geography national curriculum in South Korea through the lenses of three curriculum components that often find themselves in competition--subject content, educational processes and national/social purposes. In recent years, the prevailing national and social aims outlined for the…

The authors review the influence of state, national and international large-scale assessments (LSAs) on education policy and research. They distinguish between two main uses of LSAs: as a means for conducting research that informs educational reform and LSAs as a tool for implementing standards and enforcing accountability. The authors discuss the…

This 10th report on teacher quality presents information states reported to the U.S. Department of Education (Department) in October 2012, October 2013, and October 2014. "Title II" of the "Higher Education Act of 1965" ("HEA"), as amended in 2008 by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), requires states to…

In the 1990s and 2000s, New Zealand governments monitored national educational performance broadly through cyclical "light-sampling" of primary school students, and the annual proportions of secondary school students who gained formal credentials. In 2008, a centre-right coalition government legislated for national standards of…

The development of standards in early childhood is associated with governments wanting to assert their influence on what young children should know and be able to do before they enter formal schooling. In South Africa the National Early Learning and Development Standards (NELDS), released in 2009, attempts to assert influence in the context of…