Historically, New Zealand policy makers have defined quality teachers as those who form effective learning relationships with students and teach in culturally appropriate and responsive ways. Recent global emphasis on standardised test score improvement suggests that this definition is shifting, implying changes for the focus and the form of…

Parents currently have the unilateral ability to reject special education services. Yet, it is unclear how schools should support students with special education needs in this situation as schools may not challenge a parent's choice to revoke special education assessment consent or the provision of services. Guidelines for school…

This article considers the experiences and perceptions of practising English headteachers and the tensions that they face when juggling government prescription and government initiatives, which may be antagonistic to their educational values and beliefs. Managerial control over teachers work has been particularly acute and destructive to…

The purpose of this paper is to identify the social stigmas that are placed on the illiterate that would stimulate thoughts and create dialogue that would enable people to critically think about how being illiterate is viewed in America. This paper is intended to possibly transform or alter the opinions of the mainstream supporters regarding the…

Purpose: Given the preponderance of education reform since the No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2001), reform efforts have shaped the nature of the work and culture in schools. The emphasis on standardized testing to determine schools' status and student performance, among other factors, has generated stress, particularly…

This Review looks at the way high-performing and improving education systems share out power and responsibility. Resources--in the form of funding, capital investment or payment of salaries and other ongoing costs--are some of the main levers used to make policy happen, but are not a substitute for well thought-through and appropriate policy…

This paper analyses the perceived organisational legitimacy of the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) in preparing the population for work in the knowledge-based economy (KBE). It is argued that challenges to MOE's legitimacy are emerging with ramifications that are difficult to ignore. These challenges relate to equipping the population with…

Education is dangerous. Authoritarian governments and religions have persistently tried to control the content of education and ration its distribution. In the colonial world, education was always a site of struggle as the colonizing powers sought control and modernization, and the colonized sought some balance between protecting local cultures…

This paper paints the philosophical and ethical backdrop to some of the issues raised in "Australian Universities' Review" vol. 53, no. 2. It links academic performance pay; the measurement of research output; and the astonishing pay levels of vice chancellors to the present global financial crisis. These are explained as part of a general malaise…

This qualitative study investigated how pedagogy-driven schools create inclusive communities. From the analysis of open-ended interviews with members of 3 pedagogically driven public elementary schools (Core Knowledge, Experiential, and Montessori) in the United States of America, 3 themes emerged: (1) "community and culture," (2)…

We live among an extraordinary mass of data and measurement--connected to a vast, disjointed, yet interconnected body of standards and expectation. There is danger here, for children and for all of us. We risk becoming confused about what standards are most important, what we should aspire to be, and thus what and who we are. In addition to this…

The U.S. is facing a historic fiscal crisis. After years of neglect and mismanagement, the national debt has exceeded $14 trillion and continues to climb at a rapid pace. Despite this year's projected budget deficit of $1.6 trillion, the administration has put forward a plan for the next decade that includes $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.5…

While complexity science is gaining interest among educational theorists, its constructs do not speak to educational responsibility or related core issues in education of power and ethics. Yet certain themes of complexity, as taken up in educational theory, can help unsettle the more controlling and problematic discourses of educational…

The authors describe their experiences of teaching through a series of major earthquakes and the lessons learned regarding sustaining teaching and learning through an ongoing natural disaster. Student feedback data from across the university is analyzed to generate a model of constructive practice for instructors responding to a crisis. The…

Few terms in the lexicon of higher education today are invoked more frequently, and in more varied ways, than "engagement". The phrase "student engagement" has come to refer to how "involved" or "interested" students appear to be in their learning and how "connected" they are to their classes,…