Early childhood educators play a crucial role in supporting the development of our nation's youngest children. Research shows that the quality of interactions between adults and children is one of the strongest predictors of learning outcomes in early childhood classrooms, and that the difference between a more and less effective kindergarten…

Teachers and their unions are often vilified for the perception that they are working against the best interest of students (Berliner & Glass, 2014). The narrative, it seems, is that teachers' unions only seek to protect bad teachers, and they fight for an unearned increase in pay for teachers. The National Education Association launched the…

Education policies are enacted differently according to school contexts and geographies. This is particularly the case in large countries such as Australia where context and geographies for schooling differ greatly. Within regional, rural and remote Australia, schools are witnessing a trend in geographic disadvantage in that as distance from urban…

This study analyses how studies on disadvantaged schools, improvement and test-based accountability relate to each other. The analysis covers 69 studies on disadvantaged schools reported in prestigious educational journals and conducted in 1995-2015. Educational policies related to evaluation and accountability define the official goals of…

Background: Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an equity-focused approach intended to generate local knowledge and democratise the production of research evidence. Aims/objectives: We explore the promise and challenges of YPAR to inform education policy decision making. We focus on California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)'s…

This article addresses the gap between what works in research and what works in practice. Currently, research in evidence-based education policy and practice focuses on randomized controlled trials. These can support causal ascriptions ("It worked") but provide little basis for local effectiveness predictions ("It will work…

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) is committed to supporting the use of technology to improve teaching and learning and to support innovation throughout educational systems. This report addresses the clear need for sharing knowledge and developing policies for "Artificial Intelligence," a rapidly advancing class of…

This conceptual history traces the rise of "social capital" from the theories of James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu to its eventual adoption in fields such as primatology and evolutionary psychology. It argues that the earliest theories of social capital were formulated in response to a growing perception that education was an economic…

Based on their experiences from their work with two national initiatives designed to reform educational practice in U.S., the authors present seven guiding principles of evidence-based/informed educational policy and research to lay the foundation for making rigorous and comprehensive judgments about what evidence and scientific research designs…

The paper argues that there is a reductive logic inherent in conceptualisations of academic ability in some Western education research as currently configured. Effective interrogation of this concept necessitates consideration across relevant fields of research, as outlined in three areas of critique: that research on educational stratification…

Students' abilities are multidimensional; teachers and schools shape students' cognitive skills, most often captured by test scores, but they also shape students' non-cognitive skills such as character, tolerance, effort, and conscientiousness. This study reviews the evidence indicating disconnects between test scores and non-cognitive skills from…

Learning Forward undertakes periodic updates to the Standards of Learning because educator needs, expertise in the field, and research related to professional learning are continually evolving. In addition, evidence and data are critical to implementing and documenting the results-based professional learning that policy and accountability systems…

Like many areas of curricula internationally, technology education has encountered difficulties in achieving continuity between the rhetoric of prevailing policy and the reality of enacted practices. In technology education, the conceptually oriented nature of curricular goals is theorised to play a significant part in influencing this…

South Africa stands out in the African region for its protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights. This article examines South Africa's contributions to local policy for LGBTIs and to work on LGBTI issues in education policy and education rights progress internationally. It also considers broader South African…

In recent years, we have reached a homeostasis in education policy, characterized by clearer and fairer but lighter-touch accountability systems and the incremental growth of school choice options for families--but little appetite for big and bold new initiatives. To be sure, there are still fights--battles in state legislatures between reform…