This report is an updated version of an analysis undertaken last year (Gill, 2017) which looked at the impact of the introduction of new accountability measures (Attainment 8 and Progress 8) on the qualifications and subjects taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4). It adds in data from the 2016/17 academic year, which was the second…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how culture impacts recipients' perceptions of the effectiveness of a public apology (Netflix apology). Data were collected through a survey instrument that included both Likert Scale items and short response items. A selected number of participants from each group were also interviewed.…

Recently there have been greater calls for accountability within higher education, with a particular emphasis on retention and completion. More frequently than not, this accountability manifests itself through state funding formulas in which a percentage of state funds are directed towards performance. This article examines the history and trends…

Since 1958, the New York State Education Department has officially promoted the policy of consolidating small, rural schools. This policy is delineated in the Master Plan for School Reorganization, and while the centralization of most one-room rural schools has been successful, the state has been less successful in the consolidation of smaller,…

In this paper we report the outcomes of a national survey of academic development staff in a range of UK HE Institutions to consider the approaches adopted to evaluate teaching-related continual professional development (CPD). Despite the increasing drive towards accountability, the majority of respondents undertook no benchmarking to establish…

Introduction and Background: Colleges and universities have an obligation to educate graduate students who demonstrate civic literacy and who can engage in civic inquiry and action. Service-learning and community engagement courses are highly effective in developing civic-mindedness. Graduate professional programs may have additional reasons for…

Blended learning, which combines independent online work with in-person group sessions, can support educator development while promising time-savings, flexibility, learner autonomy, and ease of use -- all without sacrificing program quality. Indeed, two decades of peer-reviewed studies of in-person, online, and blended instruction have…

As an early Common Core booster, Michael Petrilli had hoped that by now--10 years after most states adopted the standards--the nation's schools would have logged tangible improvements in teaching and learning that resulted in higher student achievement. In this article, Petrilli reviews what Common Core is and discusses the work ahead that is…

Gert Biesta contends that managerial accountability, which focuses on efficiency and competition, dominates the current political arena in education. Such accountability has influenced states' developments of test-based teacher evaluations in an attempt to quantify teachers' efficacy on student learning. With numerous state policies requiring the…

Based on a research project comprising data from an interview study and a survey with teachers and school principals in four German federal states ("Bundesländer"), this paper questions the claim that the side effects of accountability in education are bound to high-stakes contexts, and also provides evidence of side effects occurring in…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are a group of educators working collaboratively to improve student achievement and expand the pedagogy of the individual as well as the group. Studies on PLCs, grounded by the social constructivism theory of Vygotsky, Bandura, and Wenger, have found that collaboration and collegiality foster a positive…

In an effort to enhance the quality of early childhood education (ECE) at scale, nearly all U.S. states have recently adopted Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). These accountability systems give providers and parents information on program quality and create both reputational and financial incentives for program improvement. However,…

Physical education teachers and programs are affected by increasing accountability demands. The purpose of this article is to explain Ohio's journey from advocacy for state physical education academic content standards to state-level policy that led to the development of state-wide assessments and data reporting on each school's report card. The…

The central purpose of this article is to explore research, issues, and perspectives on the implementation of service learning programs to improve student achievement in at-risk student populations. The implementation of service learning programs takes place within multiple contexts and across several terrains. The complexities of implementing…

Two aspects of teacher education for cooperative learning are the content taught and the processes used to teach the content. Of the two, the processes used may have the most powerful influences on the desired outcomes. One important theory related to the processes of learning is social interdependence theory. It posits that there are three ways…