In a recent landscape of policies in 50 states and the District of Columbia, I found that states vary significantly in how they authorize, review, and approve teacher preparation providers and programs. What these policies have in common is a requirement that all programs meet the same standards. But in practice, they do not. Too often,…

State education leaders and entities play vital, if not always highly visible, roles in establishing high-quality professional learning. Through legislation and regulations, resource allocation, leadership support, and more, they establish a vision of professional learning and support its implementation in districts and schools. In particular,…

National policies on school digitalisation take shape in their local contexts. Consequently, to understand the outcome of national policy, the local translations must be set within a contextual perspective. This article explores how four contextually different municipalities in Sweden translate national school digitalisation policy. It draws on a…

This article analyses the governance of VET for adults and its development from a historical-institutionalist perspective. It takes a look at the collective skill formation system of Switzerland, in which the federal government and private companies (or the associations representing them) play integral roles. The article argues that the…

Attempting to support student mental health, many Canadian universities have implemented a fall break with the assumption it would be helpful in alleviating students' stress and anxiety. However, there is no baseline data regarding stress level or mental illness burden of students to understand its effectiveness. Using case study methodology with…

The mental wellness of university students can be critical for their success. In an attempt to minimize stress for students, many universities have implemented a policy for a fall break with limited evidence to support its intended outcomes. This case study offers a critical appraisal of the formation of the fall break policy at one medium sized…

Almost all of the discussions surrounding educational policy focus their attention on particular places, especially various kinds of formal schooling. While this focus is of course crucial, it tends to ignore other educational sites where acts of teaching go on and where challenges to accepted understandings are waged. These include libraries and…

Recent years have seen international and national policy intensification in early childhood education (ECE). This has manifested in multiple ways, including the design and implementation of increasingly prescriptive curricular policies. Against this backdrop some early educators are pushing back. Drawing on work from their recent enquiries and…

The purpose of this article is to share with leadership educators a writing exercise designed to provide doctoral students enrolled in an Administrative and Policy Leadership course an opportunity to gain experience with building collective will for policy advocacy on a social justice issue. This article describes the use of a letter writing…

Research findings have identified the importance of university/district partnerships in the preparation of principals along with points of dissatisfaction of traditional preparation programs outcomes. While change had and was occurring in some programs, impactful change in the quality of programs and program completers must involve all…

Intergovernmental organisations (IOs) have developed global policies that have shaped the practices of higher education for decades. The OECD, WTO, and World Bank have long framed higher education as both a contributor to human capital and a driver of economic growth. Yet, their policy agendas have transformed over time and more recently taken up…

South Africa has an enormous reading crisis necessitating discernment of the real pedagogic causes of failure to read in Grade 1, and to read English as a Second Language (ESL) with understanding later. In this article will be asked if the phonics approach to initial reading is suited to African learners, and why they have to start reading in two…

In his article 'An Ameliorative Analysis of the Concept of Education', Jack Marley-Payne sets out to provide an ameliorative analysis of the concept 'education'. Marley-Payne draws an important distinction between what he labels the 'Broad' and the 'Narrow' account of education. His conclusion is that an ameliorative conceptual analysis of…

Most teacher evaluation policies in the United States seek to improve student outcomes by providing developmental supports to grow teachers' skills and by imposing accountability pressures to increase their effort. In this research synthesis and analytic essay, David D. Liebowitz argues that proper policy design has been understood as successfully…

This study examines the roles and challenges of external quality assurance in reviewing learning outcome assessments of Japanese universities. Following criticism that Japan has overly relied on the difficulty of entrance examination as a quality metric for a given institution, rather than graduates' competencies, there is more pressure for…