The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) affords a unique opportunity to rethink how Delaware has approached education reform and accountability in the past. It is an opportunity to make bold changes, to plan for sustainable and equitable change, and to capitalize on all of the assets that Delaware families, community organizations, businesses, and…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and…

Legislation leading to the mandating of accountability testing in schools was chronicled between the publication of "A Nation at Risk" (1983) to the conclusion of No Child Left Behind (2016). Involvement in education by the federal government increased throughout the educational legislation during this time period. The Omnibus Trade and…

Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools (DPS) became one of the fastest-improving large districts in the country--achieving significant improvement across all student subgroups. Unlike many city districts, DPS included charter and innovation schools as integral parts of their system and improvement strategy. DPS' journey demonstrates how much…

This article addresses the development of quality assurance approaches in South Africa, with particular reference to Catholic schools. It also addresses questions of why whole school evaluation in general has failed to play any meaningful role in improving the quality of schools in South Africa. Reference is also made to specific school cases. The…

This study highlights how principal leadership of goal-directed practices impacts outcomes. Over 2 years, three academics partnered with three principals and a small "project team" comprising one or more teachers, and one or more middle or senior leaders. In this report, the authors reflect on some of the key changes that occurred from…

Paul E. Newton is to be commended for addressing as challenging a topic as the clarification of the concept of validity. The impetus for this foray is Newton's judgment that, despite decades of development, the definition and elaboration of the term test validity in the 1999 "Standards" retains sufficient ambiguity to permit, if not invite, both…

Talk about analytics seems to be everywhere. Everyone is talking about analytics. Yet even with all the talk, many in higher education have questions about--and objections to--using analytics in colleges and universities. In this article, the author explores the use of analytics in, and all around, higher education. (Contains 1 note.)

Independent school students are the most teachable in America: they are typically bright, motivated, and well behaved, and they typically come from supportive, upper-middle-class families. Plus, they are generally placed in small classes and their teachers generally have small pupil loads. Given all this, the essential question is not whether the…

In his focus article "How Is Testing Supposed to Improve Schooling?" Ed Haertel distinguishes between seven uses of educational tests as a function of the intended action and what or who will be influenced by the intended action. He then applies Mike Kane's interpretive argument approach (Kane, 2006) as a basis for speculating about the validity…

Schools rise and fall based on the quality of the teamwork that occurs within their walls. Well-functioning leadership and teaching teams are essential to the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. That is particularly true when schools have clearly articulated, stretching aspirations for the learning of all their students. Effective…

The Whole Education National Network is a dynamic national not-for-profit partnership of schools and organisations that believe that all children and young people are entitled to an education that supports the development of wider skills, qualities and characteristics to enable them to thrive in life, learning and work, as well as conventional…

The author draws on his extensive experience helping lead Congress's education efforts and later a highly respected education research concern to propose a new approach to federal education policy that expands and transforms the federal role. This new approach would significantly expand federal aid to schools that is not restricted to particular…

This paper explores the interplay of control and trust in a cross-national and cross-cultural professional development course. It examines the differing expectations of the overseas high-ranked education officials who were the students and of the course teachers, particularly in terms of: approaches to control of content and of interpersonal…

Purpose: Increased school autonomy and accountability have been a common denominator of national reforms in otherwise heterogeneous governance systems in Europe and the USA. The paper argues that because schools serving disadvantaged communities (SSDCs) often have lower average performance, they are more often sanctioned or under closer scrutiny,…