We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given…

Educational grievances made educational democratisation an important issue in the 1980s and 1990s during South Korea's democratic consolidation. Educational democratisers sought to address these through greater freedom and autonomy for teachers, students and parents combined with teacher unionisation. Some of the excesses of the highly…

In this article, we examine the characteristics of a progressive school-change project in South Korea called the "Hyukshin" School (HS) movement. HSs are public schools that are intended to disseminate progressive and democratic practices. We obtained data from interviews with participating teachers, official documents, reports, and…

What would be one of the most sensible ways for a country to invest to achieve maximal economic growth? A recent study (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2011) by economists at Harvard and Columbia Universities shows that better teacher quality results in significantly higher students' lifetime earnings. And investing in public school teachers…

This article presents the authors' critique of lessons proposed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). The authors initiate a discussion about content that they hope will play out in schoolhouses and statehouses across the country. They take on a different task: they present a handful of lesson ideas from P21 that could enhance studies…

To help educators understand similarities and differences between American and Oriental educational systems, this article outlines 22 major characteristics of Japanese and South Korean schools and compares them with U.S. practices. An important difference is Asian parents' considerable involvement and interest in their schools. (MLH)

Considers the role of states in implementing educational reform efforts. The Instructional Systems Development (ISD) approach to designing learner-centered instruction is explained; and Project IMPACT (Instructional Management by Parents, Community, and Teachers), an early application of this approach, is described. Educational improvement efforts…

The phenomenon of technological development has assumed great importance in the contemporary world. It is reflected in unprecedented growth in productivity with accompanying labor saving, in improvement of quality of products, in the launching of new products and services, and in the development of new branches of activity. This document reports…

Education reform during the last 2 decades has been shaped by the forces of growing public distrust of educational bureaucracies in a climate of rapid political change and growing international competition in the context of a global economy. Major school reforms in four selected industrial countries that differ significantly in terms of…

Computer networking is a new educational approach that can well serve the educational needs in a society of dynamic and constant changes. This paper examines effective ways of establishing a computer network-based learning system in the Korean educational system. The Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) conducted a one-year research…