The Partnership for College Completion (PCC) was founded to "advance equity in higher education" by supporting colleges and universities to improve college completion for Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students--those groups that experience persistent disparities in completion. Simultaneously, PCC engages in state policy reform to…

The U.S. Department of Education introduced the four-year adjusted cohort high school graduation rate formula in 2008 to usher high school graduation in as a high-stakes accountability metric. This policy sought to address disparate graduation rates by student race but did not attend to systemic reasons why minoritized students had lower…

Scholars' engagement with digital social networks is complex, warranting a comprehensive understanding of their use and participation. Current research has not yet grasped the motivators, gratification, and challenges that academics encounter across multiple digital social networks. With this in mind, this study surveyed scholars who purposely…

Black students attending US K12 school districts have predictable results (Darling-Hammond, 2007). These schools demonstrate disproportionate results in all indicators of school success. Leaders of these schools are expected to improve student outcomes that disrupt and dismantle systems that have historically perpetuated these results by leading…

While many studies on external accountability forms have illustrated the impact on the prevailing conceptions and values about the nature of school organizations, still little is known about the active role of school leaders as sense-makers who deal with conflicting accountability demands. We argue that while multiple external accountability forms…

Purpose: As the federal government has retreated from taking a dominant role in encouraging implementation of common K-12 standards, states and districts have moved to fill this education policy vacuum. This study aims to understand how state and district leaders are navigating this new policy environment. Research Methods/Approach: Drawing upon…

Despite the long presence of assessment and quality assurance in US higher education, questions and concerns about higher education quality in this higher education system have been salient for the last several decades. Compliance and student learning are two frequently competing rationales for the implementation of assessment practices. This…

In this article, we situate the relatively new wave of technology-enabled personalized learning platforms within the broader policy context of institutional accountability. Although many education technology innovations were developed in response to heightened accountability pressures, technology-enabled personalization introduces new…

Through widespread "opt-out" efforts over the past several years, parent and student activists have pressured schools, districts, states, and the federal government to reconsider the extent and limits of state-mandated assessments. This case study focuses on the ethical questions faced by a principal in a school divided over state…

By means of a systematic comparison of three countries we investigate the origins and conditions for the diffusion of student evaluation of teaching (SET). We found that: (1) SET is present cross-nationally; (2) SET was initiated in the US during the 1950s by students and adopted in the 1970s by universities, while German and Colombian…

As his district's director of equity and strategic engagement, Shomari Jones often hears the stories of the racism Black students and their families experience in schools. As a Black man representing a culturally white district, he is continually reminded of how the suffering of the past has persisted into the present. Jones and Paul Sutton…

Research and Development (R&D) project managers in Higher Education must deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, competition, accountability and different objectives for professors, scientists, firms, users and other stakeholders. Formal project management frameworks are commonly adapted to support this. However, the wide range of challenges related…

School improvement in chronically under-performing schools remains a formidable challenge for school leaders. Recent policies in the U.S. have created incentives for school leaders to attempt new strategies to improve outcomes, and increasingly, school leaders of charter management organizations and other multi-school organizations (MSOs) are…

Initial Teacher Education quality is often judged through the auspices of audit-style mechanisms designed to facilitate the identification of matters pertaining to the 'readiness' of student teachers to enter the world of the classroom as fully qualified. In this regard, quality of programmes is often determined by the knowledge and skills student…

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the United States and around the world, school systems everywhere are in crisis management, with education leaders and teachers struggling to provide continuous instruction via combinations of in-person, virtual, and hybrid learning modes. A fundamental and familiar question centers on the…