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The CPC Secretary Liu Xiya has long rooted herself in basic education, adhering to the direction of quality education, and actively exploring effective reform plans for schools of basic education. In terms of education philosophy, Liu creatively proposed educational ideas such as "six years influencing a lifetime", "promoting holistic education through comprehensive integration", "the appearance of life is the appearance of education", and "red plum blossoms, each one shining brightly". In terms of curriculum system, following policy logic, embodied logic, and practical logic, the curriculum is linked to the living world, and a "Xiao Mei Hua" curriculum system integrating national curriculum, local curriculum, and school-based curriculum is constructed. In terms of learning methods, based on classroom teaching practice, focusing on systematic changes in learning methods, she aims at creating an open, inclusive, and low-control learning ecology, which formed a "light burden, high-quality" school education model. In terms of governance mechanism, she believes that it is our responsibility to build a strong country in education, guide teachers to interpret their educational mission and responsibility through teaching practices, fully leverage the leading, driving, and coordinating role of schools, and promote the deepening of family-school-society collaboration in education.

IntroductionThis comparative case study explores how educational leaders in three networked improvement communities (NICs) situated in the same school district use a continuous improvement (CI) approach, improvement science, to address equity-focused problems of practice. The district that is the focus of this study represents a critical case for understanding educational leaders' use of CI approaches as a lever for equity-focused school reform because the system and state in which it was situated had made ongoing investments in both advancing equity in schools and using various CI approaches.MethodsData collection and analysis focused on interviews with four district leaders and eight school leaders, observations of ~24 h of NIC meetings and planning meetings, and document collection. I draw on sensemaking theory to understand the factors that supported and/or constrained educational leaders' use of CI to advance equity, including more dominant and transformative equity work.ResultsAll educational leaders in the study described and were observed attending to equity as they engaged in CI. The district's sustained investments in equity-focused reform, the use of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles, data use, and NIC facilitation each acted as important factors that shaped this process.DiscussionAdvancing equity is long term work that involves addressing deeply rooted beliefs, changing policies and practices, and redesigning systems. Study findings suggest that districts may be more successful in leveraging CI to advance equity when they combine this action-oriented approach with a sustained focus on disrupting oppressive mindsets, values, and beliefs that can hinder transformational change.

The organization model has shifted from treating the workforce as machines to improving human centricworking environments. The Learning Organization is conceptualized as an organism that evolves through continuous learning to adapt with a constantly changing environment. School is a typical organization and many scholars argued to reconceptualize school as a learning organization. The Integrated Model of School as a Learning Organization (Kools & Stoll, 2016)) has been widely studied and tested in European schools, particularly in Wales. However, there is a gap in the research needed to understand the prerequisites of SLO transformation and thus to better prepare for reform. To explore the prerequisites of SLO, a researcher applies a qualitative approach to purposely collect secondary data from the eight empirical studies in Wales, Greece, Latvia, Spain, Bulgaria, Türkiye, and Italy. To conduct data analysis, a data coding strategy is employed to create the prerequisites and assign them to the main themes- System Level and School Level. To achieve the SLO transformation, the researcher then recommends a systematic reform that involves the education stakeholders, both at system level and at school level - to put forward the practice of the SLO seven actionoriented dimensions. Further meta-analysis research is recommended to widen the scope of conceptualizing antecedents of SLO transformation.

The Anglo-Saxon world has a long history of promoting research engagement with teachers and schools. However, over the years it became evident that building such research engagement in schools is challenging. This study examined factors that may influence the development of research-engaged relationships among colleagues. A survey study, including a social network analysis, was conducted. The findings indicate that both individual educators’ intentional network behavior and their perception of research engagement among school colleagues play a role in educators’ tendency to seek out school colleagues to engage in and with research. More specifically, analyses revealed that educators’ perceived research engagement in school is not mediating the relationship between their intentional network behavior and the size of their research network. This finding could imply that strengthening educators’ intentional network behavior may provide a crucial strategy for boosting the collegial interaction around research in schools.

Understanding education experts and elites is crucial in the context of their larger influence on education and the public’s greater skepticism and criticism of their work. This paper distinguishes between traditional and expert/elite interviews (EEIs), and highlights strategies for conducting them. Experts and elites have relatively broader influence, more synthesized but less situated knowledge, more embedded professional networks, and less anonymity than the lay public—and interviews need to adjust to these differences. To do so, researchers should consider strategies for (1) access, (2) trust, (3) preparation for interviews, and (4) asking sensitive and awkward questions in contexts of significant power disparities. The article ends with caveats and novel possibilities with using EEIs with traditional interviews, quantitative methods, and network data.

There are contradictory results regarding how students' learning outcomes can be predicted by various family and community inputs among previous studies, creating an evidence gap. Furthermore, previous studies have mostly concentrated on the cognitive aspect of students' learning outcomes, ignoring the affective and psychomotor dimensions, creating key knowledge gaps. Bridging these gaps, this predictive correlational study was conducted to understand how cultural capital, parental involvement (family inputs), support for schools, security network and school reforms (community inputs) jointly and partially predict students' overall, cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning outcomes in the context of Calabar Education Zone, Nigeria. A random sample of principals (n=78 ) and students (n=915 ) recruited through a multistage approach, participated in the study. Data were collected through the physical administration of three sets of questionnaires designed by the researchers. The psychometric properties of the questionnaires (such as validity, dimensionality, reliability and goodness of fit) were all analysed and found acceptable based on pilot data. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 27 and AMOS version 26 software. Results from the main study proved, among others, that family inputs (family social capital and parental involvement) jointly and individually had a significant contribution to students' overall, cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning outcomes. Similarly, community inputs (support for school, security network and school reforms) have significant composite and partial contributions to students' overall, cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning outcomes in public secondary schools. This result implies that parents and host community leaders must strengthen their partnerships with secondary schools and contribute their quota to institutions' curricular and co-curricular activities.

Introduction. The aim of this research is to investigate changes in Thai educators’ attitudes towards their understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome before and after a teacher-training session. Currently, opportunities for professional training regarding Asperger’s Syndrome are very scarce in Thai educational communities. Educators may not be able to provide optimum education and guidance for their students with Asperger’s Syndrome. Meanwhile, these students’ learning outcomes are significantly affected by their educators lacking knowledge of evidence-based intervention methods. Therefore, based on a needs assessment, a teacher-training session was developed to minimize the gaps in pedagogical knowledge and practice. Materials and Methods. A quasi-experimental, embedded mixed-methods design was used to obtain data. This study employed a one-group, pre-test/post-test design, as there were no control groups involved due to the novel learning subject matter. The limitations of the current study – its structure and participant recruitment – were identified and discussed. An availability sampling method was used for this study, resulting in the recruitment of 12 in-service teachers and 32 pre-service teachers from the northeastern region of Thailand. Questionnaires and interviews were used as measurement tools to comprehensively capture participants’ learning experiences. For the statistical analysis, the paired sample t-test (alpha = .05) was used. Meanwhile, for the descriptive analysis, the deductive approach was used. Results. Our results corroborate our sequential hypotheses regarding a teacher-training session and educators’ perceived levels of understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome. The training session was developed with a hypothesis that teachers needed educational opportunities to acquire proper knowledge of Asperger’s Syndrome, so that their students could be fully benefited from the pedagogy. As a result of attending the session, a statistically significant increase in correct response rates was indicated. Indeed, this increase in knowledge fulfilled the second hypothesis that by having proper knowledge of Asperger’s Syndrome, teachers’ professional reflexivity can be improved. Discussion and Conclusion. The outcomes of this study indicate that a teacher-training session has played a crucial role in cultivating Thai educators’ understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome. The outcomes present an interesting correlation between teachers’ knowledge acquisition and their increased professional and personal reflections. Simultaneously, the findings of this study suggest the potential benefits of improving research methodology, including an employment of randomized control trial, a larger sample size, and diversity within the sample population.

Introduction. The reform of many national education systems is associated with a growing focus on assessment as the dominant aspect of the modern educational process. One of the directions of the reform of the Kazakh school system is focused on the transition to criteria-based assessment of the educational achievements of schoolchildren. In this regard, for Kazakhstan, as well as for many countries of the world, the problem of developing evaluative literacy of both practising teachers and today’s students studying in pedagogical educational programmes has become especially acute.Aim. The aim of the current research is to reveal the essential characteristics of assessment literacy as an important quality of a modern teacher, to actualise the problem of its development in the situation of reforming the school education system, to outline possible directions for solving this problem.Methodology and research methods. The present research is based on the complex use of theoretical and empirical methods. The theoretical research was carried out using a comparative aspect analysis of scientific and methodological sources and normative documents on the problem of the formation of teacher assessment literacy. Empirical data were obtained when conducting a survey of school teachers, systematising and summarising its results.Results and scientific novelty. In the course of theoretical analysis, the authors identified the factors, which actualise the problem of teacher assessment literacy development; its main characteristics are summarised, which made it possible for the authors to formulate the definition of this concept. The results of the survey of school teachers demonstrated that shortterm professional development courses for teachers provide a knowledge component of their assessment literacy, but do not solve the problem of developing practical skills, which are in demand in the course of assessment activities. The development of teacher assessment literacy to the behavioural level is a multi-stage and complex process that involves not only theoretical training, but also the independent design of one’s own assessment activity, taking into account the subject characteristics and other contexts accompanying educational practice. Particular attention should be paid to the formation and development of assessment literacy of future teachers during their studies at the university. An integrated approach to solving this problem should provide: the formation of deep knowledge in the chosen subject area, participation in various assessment practices within the framework of methodological courses and pedagogical practices, interaction with practising teachers.The practical significance of the study lies in the recommendations that determine possible directions for solving the problem of developing school teacher assessment literacy in the context of reforming the educational assessment system.

Previous researchers examining professional learning communities (PLCs) claim that effective building-level PLCs improve teacher collaboration and student achievement. However, the role of district office leadership in supporting the success of site-level PLC teams is presently underexplored. Using an online survey, we investigated the claim that district office support enhances the success of site-level PLCs. Quantitative data were collected from 596 participants employed at 21 schools within 16 school districts in the north Texas region. Findings derived from correlation and structural equation modeling analyses revealed a significant direct effect of district office leadership support on successful PLC team implementation, suggesting that district leaders play an active role in the districtwide implementation of PLCs.

Background. In the presented article, the authors attempt to consider the process of changing the rural education system during the liberal reforms of the 90s of the XX century. The purpose of the article is to identify the characteristic features and peculiarities of this process. The social sphere of the Russian village has its own historically developed features that reflect the specifics and content of agricultural labor, the level and quality of development of the rural community at a specific historical stage. The relevance of the study is due to the need to create a holistic view of the reform of the social sphere of the village, in particular the education system, at the stage of the formation of market relations. Materials and methods. During the study of this issue, legislative acts were used, which determined the methodological basis of the state of the education system in the conditions of the new Russia, including rural schools. The methodological basis of the research is, first of all, the basic methods – historicism, objectivity, consistency. Chronological, comparative- historical methods, as well as system analysis were used, which reflects the essence of the ongoing process in the time period under study. Results. The study examined the process of reforming the social sphere of the Russian countryside, in particular the education system. In order for the activity of the entire agro-industrial complex system to be effective, it requires the creation of modern comfortable conditions. This problem is being solved by the branches of the rural social sphere. Without directly participating in the creation of the final result, it forms the conditions for the production of agricultural products. In the study of this issue, the main common features and patterns of this process were identified. Conclusions. The conducted research justifiably allows us to conclude that the social sphere plays an important role in the preservation of the agricultural sector, in its functioning at the stage of reforming Russian society. That is why the ongoing modernization in post-Soviet Russia could not but affect this area of rural life.

The value system of the Organisation of the New Ukrainian School (NUS) aims to adapt the education system in Ukraine to progressive international standards in terms of prospects for Sustainable Development and lifelong education, while preserving the best traditions of national pedagogy. In the vector of such ambitious plans and positive prospects for qualitative transformations in education and other social existence areas, the NUS teacher's personality acquires central significance. The problem of developing a worldview culture become central. We propose to define it as a “positive worldview culture of the teacher”. The study aims to mutually integrate the concepts of the worldview culture of primary school teachers and the ideological, axiological and practical aspects of the NUS implementation. In preparing the study, the authors used observation, description, complex analysis, analysis of the regulatory framework for the implementation of the NUS and the updated standard of education, functional method, comparison method, System Analysis, generalisation and abstraction. As a result, the study analysed the concept of the worldview culture of primary school teachers, defined the directions and sources of developing worldview culture of future primary school teachers, and structured the main desirable features of the worldview culture of the future teacher of NUS formed during studying at HEI. The study found out that ideological culture is associated not only with the intellectual development and assimilation of universal knowledge in a ready-made form (uncritically, without rethinking), but also with the interpretation of this knowledge in the light of personal experience, personality-oriented values and attitudes. The article substantiates the importance of organising professional training of future primary school teachers to achieve a high academic indicator of mastering knowledge, practical skills, and a generalised higher level of competence readiness, which is a professionally determined worldview culture. The study actualises the necessity to pay increased attention to the part of organising the training of future NUS teachers to the fundamentally important concept of a positive worldview culture

This review critiques Hannah Carson Baggett and Carey E. Andrzejewski’s The Grammar of School Discipline. To examine school discipline and to specifically highlight anti-Black racism in public schools in the state of Alabama, the authors detailed and criticized the three Rs of school discipline: removal from classrooms, resistance by students and staff, and reform of disciplinary practices. They added one more R to the list: repair for both schools and self. The authors used literature from varied fields (e.g., education, educational psychology, sociology, criminal justice, developmental psychology), numeric data on school disciplinary practices, and portraits of students and school leaders to support their arguments. This review will summarize the authors’ arguments, provide analysis and critique of the text, and detail what it contributes to the field.

Previous research has illustrated that advocacy organizations play a crucial role in education policy networks by communicating educational reform agendas to public and private stakeholders. In the United States, an inter-state consortium of these advocacy organizations has formed their own network. The Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) network is a formal, centrally coordinated policy network that connects state-level advocacy organizations to one another and to national advocacy organizations, think tanks, and philanthropic foundations. Despite more than doubling in size since 2016, little is known about the policy preferences of PIE members. In this paper, we use social network analysis to identify and describe the ideological dimensions of advocacy that structure the PIE Network and to examine how these ideological dimensions have changed as the network has expanded. We find that the central areas of emphasis among these organizations have coalesced around neoliberal ideologies that promote accountability and standards. However, there is an underlying tension within the network that unfolds along two dimensions. On the one hand, preferences for choice and autonomy (e.g., charters, general choice, and autonomy & deregulation) are contrasted to those favoring equitable funding for low-income schools and early childhood education. On the other hand, members emphasize policies involving factors internal to schools (student interventions, leadership standards and accountability) to those external to schools (e.g., familial support, funding-based equity). These tensions within the network have grown more pronounced over time as the network has expanded to include new members with a more ideological narrow set of market-based policy preferences.

It has been around 15 years since the commencement of lesson study for the learning community (LSLC) in Vietnam. It started at several pilot schools in Bac Giang province, and today it is practised all over the country. While some pilot schools emerged with high-quality practices, the speed of actual changes in the practices still remains slow. This is because, as the author has found, the following conceptions persist among the policymakers, school leaders and teachers: (a) LSLC requires changing teaching techniques; (b) LSLC is a lesson demonstration, and (c) LSLC is a one-day event. This article addresses these conceptions and argues that LSLC should be considered a fundamental, long-term, and holistic school reform approach based on democratic principles and excellence. To overcome these limitations, it is critical for the practitioners, researchers and policymakers to have networks to share their experiences, be informed about the practices and theories, and research into LSLC more deeply – to even learn from the practitioners and researchers in other countries too.

The first Ukrainian translation of the text by Boguslaw Wolniewicz " Let's protect schools". Boguslaw Wolniewich (1927-2017) is a new figure in Ukrainian information space. This Warsaw professor and visiting professor at a number of leading American and European universities, a member of the International Wittgenstein Society, also known for his journalistic activities, including appearances in the press, radio and television, and lectures on YouTube where he became a real star of the Internet. The main areas of his thought were logic, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion and philosophy of law, but he gained the most recognition as the creator of the ontology of the situation, as translator and commentator of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as a critic of freudianism, phenomenology, postmodernism, marxism and religious fundamentalism. In his opinion, school reform cannot destroy the authority of a teacher – even for the sake of introducing the latest foreign educational models. Wolniewicz defends the ideals of the classical school, which should give students scientifically sound knowledge, not just practical recipes for survival in society. He emphasizes that the main task of the school is education, and education can appear in it only as a valuable by-product – as doping. The school educates only through learning: through its content, its level, its requirements and its appropriate organization. Wolniewicz warns against the dominance of bureaucracy in the school, and sees the mission of the state in ensuring educational autonomy. A school should not be a profit-oriented institution or a means of building the personal career of an official.

Introduction. The aim of the study is to find ways to expand teacher efficacy by examining how the teacher’s efficacy varies according to the school organisation culture and the level of the professional learning community. Materials and Methods. Survey methods were used to collect the data from 400 in-service teachers at elementary, middle, and high schools in South Korea, with five schools selected from each region, respectively. This study utilizes the data from 359 teachers. This study used a random sampling method, taking the location of the school into consideration. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the overall trends in school organisation culture. T-test was used to examine differences among research variables depending on the personal background of gender and teacher level, and the F-test and Scheffe tests were used for school level and teaching experience. Results. First, school’s organization culture is transforming and evolving into a more ideal and model culture. As schools increasingly transform into innovative schools, innovative cultures and group cultures gradually form. Second, a school is a type of organization system that elicits responses elicits a variety of responses from the teachers depending on their personal background and characteristics. Third, professional learning communities have a positive effect on teacher efficacy. Therefore, school organisation culture can be seen as a better predictor of teacher ef ficacy than a professional learning community. Discussion and Conclusion. The article is of interest to the managers of the school educat ion system.

Educational reformers all around the globe are continuously searching for ways to make schools more effective and efficient. In Germany, this movement has led to reforms that reduced overall school time of high track secondary schools from 9 to 8 years, which was compensated for by increasing average instruction time per week in lower secondary school (Grades 5–10). Based on prior research, we assumed that this reform might increase gender disparities in STEM-related outcomes, stress, and health because it required students to learn similar content in less amount of time. Therefore, we investigated how the school time reform affected gender disparities at the end of upper secondary school between 2011 and 2013. Specifically, we considered representative data of the last two cohorts who completed lower secondary school before the reform (N = 2,405) and the first two cohorts after the reform (N = 2,413) from the National Educational Panel Study. Potential differences in gender disparities were investigated for upper secondary school outcomes of subject-specific standardized test performance, self-concept, and interest in mathematics, biology and physics, as well as outcomes of school-related stress and health. Overall, we found substantial disparities between girls and boys, which seemed to change little after the reform. Exceptions were the statistically significant gender × reform interactions for one stress dimension (Overload) and two health dimensions (Overburdening and Achievement-related fear) which increased for both boys and girls, but more strongly for girls.

This article explores municipal variation in the implementation of a Danish educational reform. The aim of the reform was to increase the assimilation of immigrants, and removing mother-tongue training for first- and second-generation immigrants was believed to increase their proficiency in Danish. This article uses a difference-in-differences method to explore the effect of this removal on children’s educational outcomes in terms of grades in standardised tests in class nine, assessing both grades in the majority language Danish and grades in mathematics. This study, furthermore, takes potential heterogeneities in terms of gender and immigrant generation into consideration. This study shows that the expected results of the reform were not obtained. Rather the opposite that the removal of mother-tongue training leads to lower grades in Danish for boys and in mathematics for both boys and girls.

The article focuses on the participation of Perm teachers in the events of the Revolution and the Civil War. It is shown how the socio-political views and social initiatives of the pedagogical intelligentsia transformed under the conditions of the alternating political regimes in the territory of Perm Governorate from February 1917 till July 1919. The activities of the Perm Teachers’ Union are given as the implementation of ideas of the new professional organization of teachers. Various aspects of the interaction between the authorities and pedagogical intelligentsia are considered against the background of the processes of school education reforms during the difficult period of constant political regime change.

This article examines improvement science (Bryk, 2009) against the backdrop of traditional academic research methods. Improvement science is perhaps most closely aligned with design-based implementation research, and is typically applied to networked communities (e.g., schools, hospitals) with the goal of continuous organizational improvement. Improvement science has earned value among the practitioners and researchers who engage in it, but still seeks more complete legitimacy within the academy. We describe the method of improvement science and situate it within the two paradigms of design research and research design. Examples of its implementation in school reform and university program improvement are shared to illuminate the systematic and dynamic nature of its process. The article speaks to the normalization of research design and design research within the context of "what counts" as research in academia, and where and how improvement science can fit within these traditions.

During recent years, we have seen an increase in the complexity of school leadership as knowledge work. The new forms of knowledge available to school leadership, such as performance data and survey-based data, raise the expectation that leaders make relevant use of these knowledge resources. Theory and policy claim that new knowledge is of instrumental use in leadership decision making, yet there are important limitations to this strand of efficiency thinking. The paper analyzes leaders’ use of organizational assessment data for the purposes of developing their leadership practice. The paper constructs this empirical object as a composite of general quality standards and specific knowledge about each school. Accountability practices are taken to be specific to particular schools and professional organizations. The paper explores how school leadership practices can be researched as an interplay between quality standards emerging from abstracted knowledge ressources such as theory and strategy, and local knowledge work. It may be difficult to balance these forms of knowledge work, and that may explain why leaders often find it hard to use new knowledge resources. The task of making sense of the flow of knowledge and new standards becomes a complex, comprehensive and time-consuming part of practical leadership.

Abstract “Unscripted Possibilities” examines the potential for change that emerges in rural environments that are affected by poverty and educational reforms that ignore the specific contexts of rural schools. Using a National Writing Project program, the College, Career, and Community Writers Program as case, we argue that professional learning relationships that are characterized by mutuality and indeterminacy create changes in teacher practice and school culture. Our analysis adapts concepts from Anna Tsing’s (2015)The Mushroom at the End of the World to uncover hopeful possibilities in damaged school environments.

The educational reforms carried out in Sweden have aroused persistent interest in the French public debate. This paper focuses on the evolution of the media’s portrayal of an alleged Swedish “educational model,” by highlighting cross-national influences over an extended time horizon. The origin of a stereotype is addressed from the point of view of the interaction between the Swedish branding of its own model and the demand, on the part of French elites, for a handy reform paradigm. Two crucial phases of idealisation are identified. At first, the popularity of the Swedish experiment in education coincides with the idealisation of Sweden as a laboratory for social reform. Since 2010, TV reporting has focused on both the resistance of this myth and the diversity of its possible uses. The expansion of market-oriented principles in educational culture is stigmatised as a “betrayal” of values associated with the Swedish reform experience (pupil autonomy, inclusiveness, anti-authoritarianism), while other players—such as international ranking organisations—intervene in shaping the media image.

The planned analysis follows the view that spelling is an issue that has been preoccupying German society for several centuries. Linked to this is also the spelling performance of students an often controversial topic. The focus of the newly launched school reform was on individuality and equal opportunities. Despite everything, the depth of expertise in the existing school reforms seems to diverge greatly, as well as with regard to German lessons and the related knowledge of German orthography. This work tries to get an answer to this phenomenon. The theoretical part discusses influencing factors on the acquisition of written language, the most important key data of the German history of orthography and a scientifically founded knowledge of the areas of upper and lower case as well as separation and combination. The second part contains the research description and the data analysis. All results are then analyzed with regard to theoretical knowledge. The aim of the project is to make the knowledge of German orthography more accessible and comprehensible to the learner.

This policy study examines how policymakers and policy experts in Norway made us of research and studies – produced in Norway, in the Nordic countries and outside the Nordic region – to explain the 2020 incremental school reform. In total, 2 White Papers, 12 Green Papers and 3438 texts, cited in the White and Green Papers, were used as data for the text-based social network analysis. The three major findings were the following: First, the policymakers and experts make excessive use of references (on average, 246 references per White or Green Paper). The publications they cite are highly specialized and issue centred with little overlap between the various papers. Second, the policy references for the 2020 reform were mainly domestic. Approximately 70% of the referenced texts were published in Norway. Finally, the social network analysis enabled the authors to identify five texts that were influential and that bridged curriculum with quality monitoring reform topics. The authors suggest that more attention should be paid to an analysis of incremental reforms such as the 2020 reform in Norway. They identify a few of the blind spots that the more commonly used focus on fundamental reforms tends to produce.

A descriptive case study approach is employed using a content analysis of the blogs of 36 school leaders who took part in the 2016–2017 Shadow a Student Challenge project and follow up interviews of five of the school leaders. This research was used to explore and describe how an empathetic design approach provided a greater vantage point for school leaders. By viewing school through the eyes of students, school leaders gain a deeper insight into the school experience. School leaders play a key role in establishing the culture, climate, and educational outcomes within their school environments. An empathetic design approach to school reform provides a stronger point for initiating change than an atmosphere focused on evaluation and accountability. Taking a school-based approach, encouraging school leaders to immerse themselves in the school experience, provides an opportunity for school leaders to gain empathy and insights foundational in generating meaningful and innovative change leading to sustainable education. Three major themes emerged from the findings: 1) pace and structure of the school day, 2) student learning experience, and 3) reflective and innovative insights.

n a global education policy context, school leadership is increasingly regarded as crucial for improving school outcomes as well as equity in education. The purpose of this article is to analyze Swedish upper secondary school principals’ perceptions of the impact of school reforms in relation to equity. Empirical data was collected in an online survey distributed to all upper secondary principals affiliated to the national Association of School Principals. The results of the survey are discussed in relation to governance and previous research. The study indicates that a majority of the principals related equity in education to state governance, while reforms counteracting equity were connected to marketization/New Public Management reforms. The findings also indicate variations between groups of principals employed in the public or private school sector, including differing local (school market) conditions. Further, irrespective of sector, teachers were considered as the main resource for realizing equity in school.

Public education in the United States has been undergoing a shift from an empirical tradition in which practices and policies are derived from research, practice, reflection, and implementation. In this empirical tradition, professionals embrace a culture and commitment to evidence-based practices (EBPs) and expect that practices and policies in the field are supported by rational, data-driven models. In this paper, we present an argument and three cases that illustrate how educators have been undergoing a gradual shift away from empiricism toward a de-evolution of EBP. We propose that this gradual shift is based on a political-social context, in which practices and policies are implemented using the language of an accountability model of reform, in which national and state regulations, and accreditation bodies, establish expectations often devoid of an empirical basis for the practices they mandate.

In 18th century Lombardy a well-developed offer of grammar schools granted rural bourgeoisie and some artisans and shopkeepers easy access to Latin education. The Habsburg school reforms (1774, 1786) aim to reduce the offer of Latin education and transform the grammar schools into normal schools for “common education”. The opposition of rural municipalities produced a body of proof concerning the perception of the meanings of Latin education in the countryside of Lombardy.

A child’s education at an early school age is a major challenge, both at the individual and society levels. Its present shape is conditioned by, on the one hand, the development of science, especially psychology, pedagogy and didac- tics; on the other hand, by the changing socio-cultural, political and economicreality. These changes have established new trends in early school pedagogy. The article includes the process of reforming the school in terms of elementary education, the role and place of the teacher and student in the learning process, the objectives of early school education, the comprehensive development of the student, his activation and evaluation.

This multi-case study explored how local policy actors in rural school districts interpreted new teacher evaluation policies and how state-level policy actors influenced local policy responses. In the first phase of the study, teachers and administrators in four rural school districts in two U.S. states were interviewed about new state teacher evaluation policies and their own local efforts to meet policy demands, while the study’s second phase investigated the work of state-level policy actors. Shedding light on the realities of tackling reform mandates in rural schools, the study finds that teacher evaluation policy efforts are challenged by the tension between the formative and summative purposes of teacher evaluation, that teacher evaluation policies allowing local control in system design require a significant commitment at the local level, that local actors rely on and value the work of policy intermediaries, and that interpreting teacher evaluation policy and planning for implementation can be particularly challenging in small rural school districts.

Although state-run school districts and gubernatorial school takeover have become popular turnaround strategies among some states, little is known about how district and school leaders perceive and respond to these changes in educational governance. Using Georgia as a case study, this paper employs sensemaking and exit, voice, and loyalty as frameworks to examine how district and school leaders interpret and respond to the threat of state takeover. Similar to prior studies, results indicate that urban schools and districts largely populated by low-income students and students of color are most likely to be affected by state takeover. Several themes emerge from district and school leaders’ interpretation of state takeover policy, including: (a) principals and teachers are to blame, (b) too many changes, too little time to reflect, (c) lack of trust between school districts and the state, and (d) market-based reforms and the illusion of choice. Although a non-trivial number of teachers and principals have expressed their intent to leave for charter schools or leave the teaching profession in response to the threat of state takeover, voice was the more common response, particularly among teachers in takeover-eligible schools who were more experienced and had students performing well on state tests. There are also noteworthy differences in the response of district and school leaders based on the eligibility for state takeover.

The aim of this article is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the internationalisation of the Swedish school, seen from a municipal level. The paper draws on an examination of local school policy in two Swedish municipalities between 1950-2000 from a historical curriculum theory perspective, taking into account the socio-historical context of schooling, including school politics, school administration and school practice. The international influences and exchange within the two municipality cases has been traced by searching for educational efforts that include international elements such as introducing new subjects, programmes, immigrant education, study trips abroad and/or conferences. The result shows that the Swedish school has been subject to transnational exchange long before entering the ‘era of globalisation’. It also shows that the extent and the forms of transnational exchange differ radically between municipalities, which in this paper are discussed in terms of ‘different worlds of internationalisation’.

Using individual-level student data from Pennsylvania, this study explores the extent to which charter school racial composition may be an important factor in students’ self-segregative school choices. Findings indicate that, holding distance and enrollment constant, Black and Latino students are strongly averse to moving to charter schools with higher percentages of White students. Conversely, White students are more likely to enroll in such charter schools. As the percentage and number of students transferring into charter schools increases, self-segregative school choices raise critical questions regarding educational equity, and the effects of educational reform and school choice policies on the fostering of racially diverse educational environments.

The author discusses a complete and multi-level human resource development effort in a challenging context. The Advanced Leadership Program (ALP) involved all the leadership teams for seven new schools districts and was situated in an emerging democracy. The author stresses the potential of a ‘leveraging link,’ a mixture of pressures and supports as adding value and depth to both the personal mastery of participants in the ALP and to the development of the organization. In this way the ALP program was more than a training program for senior leaders as it was designed to go both wider and deeper.

While school reform has been the subject of much research globally, few studies have examined “on the ground„ educational reform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), especially in relation to the “Tatweer„ System, an initiative which purports to transform education and lead educational change within the country. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap and reports on a study which examined female leaders’ perceptions and experiences of the system. A qualitative case study of three Tatweer schools was conducted, with data being drawn from one-on-one interviews (n = 16), focus group interviews (n = 4) and documentary analysis. Our findings suggest that the Tatweer system is what can be termed “semi-decentralised„, which appears to be linked to issues of accountability, trust, and perceived staff competence. However, at the local level, major breakthroughs seem to have taken place in relation to distributing leadership responsibilities and decision-making processes within these female-led schools.

The educational system and youth policy were important spheres in the social policy of the American military government. The paper focuses on the problems which the American occupation authorities faced when renewing the activity of educational institutions; the basic principles of educational policy are emphasized. The military government put big emphasis on work with youth, the organization of youth’s leisure, and encouraged the creation of various youth associations.

Disparities in college access for underrepresented urban students are one of the most urgent educational problems of America’s education system. In response to growing national concern, this longitudinal study investigated how school leaders worked collaboratively with key stakeholders to implement research-supported student services in order to improve college access for underrepresented urban students. The quantitative investigation showed that when educational leaders and key stakeholders worked collaboratively to deliver comprehensive student services, urban students in a high-poverty school district experienced measurable benefits in terms of their college enrolment. This study may be of particular value to policymakers, school leaders, and educators concerned with the low college access rates of students in urban schools, as well as to those who are seeking to understand what works better to prepare urban students for post-secondary education.

Charter schools have become the cornerstone of school reform in Chicago and in many other large cities. Enrollments in Chicago charters increased by more than ten times between 2000 and 2014 and, with strong support from the current mayor and his administration, the system continues to grow. Indeed, although state law limits charter schools in Chicago to 75 schools, proponents have used a loophole that allows multiple campuses for some charters to bypass the limit and there are now more than 140 individual charter campuses in Chicago. This study uses comprehensive data for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years to show that, after controlling for the mix of students and challenges faced by individual schools, Chicago’s charter schools underperform their traditional counterparts in most measurable ways. Reading and math pass rates, reading and math growth rates, graduation rates, and average ACT scores (in one of the two years) are lower in charters all else equal, than in traditional neighborhood schools. The results for the two years also imply that the gap between charters and traditionals widened in the second year for most of the measures. The findings are strengthened by the fact that self-selection by parents and students into the charter system biases the results in favor of charter schools.

Worldwide, and especially in South Africa, change and decentralised decision-making have been topical issues in the provision of education for the past years. It appears that teachers - the key agents in implementing the policies concerned - are largely ignored in the pre-implementation phases, and treated merely as implementers of these policies. The results from an empirical investigation revealed that the teachers in the South African sample expressed an exceptional degree of eagerness to be involved in decision-making and responsibility-taking concerning school change, even in aspects of management that could be considered as the principal's 'turf'. Although the views of a group of teachers in six other countries showed very similar result patterns, the sample of South African teachers was considerably more eager to be involved in initiatives of school change and related responsibilities than the teachers in the samples of the other countries. The results are illuminating, taking into consideration the increased workload of teachers, as well as certain other factors. Possible explanations for these observations are discussed.

This paper discusses research, (its process and results), on an inner city school. It highlights the methods of data collection used in the research and discusses the findings. Methods of data collection include observation, interview and documentary information. Results indicate that the school in question is making modest strides, in terms of serving its students and the community in which it is located, through its school improvement programs. Besides making other strides, Downtown Elementary School (DES) strives to be a pedagogical community and a place where praxis (simplified definition: the interrelationship/interaction between practice and theory) is being practiced at its best. DES is unique because it concurrently runs two contemporary school reform programs, namely, magnet3 and professional development school (PDS)4. The paper describes how these innovative ventures operate at DES and the implications of the juxtaposition of the two programs.

This paper discusses research, (its process and results), on an inner city school. It highlightsthe methods of data collection used in the research and discusses the findings. Methods ofdata collection include observation, interview and documentary information. Resultsindicate that the school in question is making modest strides, in terms of serving its studentsand the community in which it is located, through its school improvement programs. Besidesmaking other strides, Downtown Elementary School (DES) strives to be a pedagogicalcommunity and a place where praxis (simplified definition: the interrelationship/interactionbetween practice and theory) is being practiced at its best. DES is unique because itconcurrently runs two contemporary school reform programs, namely, magnet3 andprofessional development school (PDS)4. The paper describes how these innovative venturesoperate at DES and the implications of the juxtaposition of the two programs.

Worldwide teachers are faced with the task of continuously facilitating and implementing educational reform that has been designed without their participation. This exclusion of the key agents, who must mediate between the change agenda and actual change in the classroom, from the planning and decision-making processes, is detrimental to educational reform. Although school-based management has recently emerged as the instrument to accomplish the decentralisation of decision-making powers to school level, the success thereof depends largely on school principals' disposition regarding teacher involvement. It is argued that the expectation of principals regarding their own leadership role, as well as the professional role teachers should fulfil, is a primary determinant of principals' willingness to involve teachers in responsibility-taking processes outside the classroom. The results from an empirical investigation revealed that principals' perception, of the wishes of teachers regarding involvement, significantly underestimated teachers' actual involvement wishes. Likewise, the expectation of teachers regarding the willingness of principals to involve them was a significant underestimation of the involvement level principals are actually in favour of. These misperceptions probably discourage actual school-based management and could jeopardize the implementation of educational reform in general.

The analysis of the authors belonging to the "Correspondence Theory" leaves little doubt that U.S educational expansion and school reform in 19. century was associated with the growing ascendancy of the capitalist mode of production. Discovered pattern comprehends accumulation in the dynamic, advanced sectors of the economy, the consequent integration of new workers into the wage labor system, the expansion of the urban working class and the reserve army, the emergence of political protest movements and the threat of social unrest, and, finally, the development of movements for educational expansion and reform. While the impetus for educational reform rarely came from impoverished disgruntled farmers or urban working class, the leadership of the movement was in the hands of a coalition of professionals and owners from the leading sectors of the economy who always succeeded in stamping its imprint on the form and direction of educational innovation.

This paper examines the discursive strategies employed by advocates of Parent Trigger laws in the United States which allow parents of children in “failing” schools, in some states, to call for interventions in the operation of the schools via petition. The paper reviews the genesis of Parent Trigger laws, the network of conservative political organizations supporting Parent Trigger legislation, and the ways in which Parent Trigger advocates have promoted the concept through the deployment of both material and symbolic resources. The paper argues that Parent Trigger laws promote a “thin” form of democratic participation that equates democracy with consumer choice through the strategic representation of public schools as broken institutions and parent trigger laws as empowering parents to choose. Support for this position is developed through an empirical qualitative analysis of a sample of media texts produced by various organizations within the Parent Trigger policy network including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Parent Revolution, and others. By identifying frequently used framing devices such as metaphors, exemplars, catch-phrases, and depictions as well as reasoning devices such as root causes, consequences, and appeals to principle, the study reveals the dominant frames employed by Parent Trigger advocates and contributes to the development of a more critical perspective concerning the media produced by various interest groups.

A escola fundamental, seja ela no Brasil como no exterior, passa por constantes reformas. A histórica passagem de uma escola de elite para uma escola de massa coincide com o período em que a criança passa a ser reconhecida como pessoa, sujeito de direitos e cidadã. O artigo mostra como quem freqüenta a escola nos nossos tempos são crianças e adolescentes de extrações sociais diversas, cada um deles com uma história pessoal que para alguns é regular, mas para outros é caracterizada por situações de risco, marcada por fracassos, desvantagens, mal-estar e sofrimentos dos mais diferentes tipos. Visto que é impossível impedir que a realidade contextual envolva as salas de aula, considera-se a urgência de ponderar necessidades e direitos de uma gama de estudantes em situação de desvantagem e risco social cuja principal variável refere-se à desigualdade social e desemboca em inúmeras dificuldades como: baixo rendimento escolar, manifestações de hostilidade (bullying), adaptação ao próprio papel de estudante e interação social. O artigo mostra também como, na história recente, a interpretação da relação entre condições de desvantagem social e instrução baseou-se em diferentes hipóteses. Cada uma dessas hipóteses - a desvantagem sociocultural como diversidade de talentos, como handicap natural, a desvantagem de tipo estrutural, as desvantagens devidas a características de ordem qualitativo-organizacional da escola, como incapacidade da escola de fornecer um ensino adequado, como relação prejudicada entre professor aluno - a partir do período pós-guerra, adotou diferentes modelos de enfrentamento.La escuela primaria, sea en Brasil o en otros países, pasa por continuas reformas. Su histórica transformación de institución de elite en institución de masa ocurrió al mismo tiempo que el niño pasó a ser concebido como un ciudadano titular de derechos. Este trabajo destaca que los alumnos y estudiantes de nuestro tiempo son niños y adolescentes de orígenes sociales heterogéneas. Cada uno de ellos tiene su propia historia de vida que, para unos, puede ser considerada "normal", pero, para otros, es marcada por una diversidad de situaciones de riesgo social, fracaso, desventajas, malestar y sufrimientos de los más diferentes géneros. Como es imposible impedir que la situación social involucre e influya sobre las aulas, es necesario considerar necesidades y derechos de un amplio abanico de estudiantes en situación desfavorable y de riesgo social, con dificultades en el rendimiento escolar, dificultades relativas a manifestaciones de hostilidad (bullying), dificultades de adaptación al rol de estudiante y a la interacción social. Este trabajo también indica como, en la historia reciente, la interpretación de la relación entre condiciones de desventaja social y escolarización se basa en diferentes hipótesis. Cada una de estas hipótesis (la desventaja sociocultural como diversidad de talentos, como deficiencia natural, la desventaja de tipo estructural, las desventajas debidas a características de carácter cualitativo-organizativo de la escuela, como la incapacidad de la escuela de ofrecer enseñanza adecuada, como una relación dañada entre profesor y estudiante) a partir del post-guerra adoptó diversos modelos de respuesta.Elementary education, in Brazil and in other countries, is continually being reformed. The historic passage from a school for the elite to a school for the masses coincides with a period in which the child comes to be seen as a citizen endowed with rights. The article shows how the student body in our time consists of children and adolescents of different social origins. Each has a life history which, for some, is "normal," but for others is characterized by a great variety of situations of social risk, marked by failure, disadvantages, malaise and suffering. At it is impossible to keep the social context from invading the classroom, there is a need to ponder the requirements and rights of a range of students in situations of disadvantage and social risk, difficulties in school achievement, difficulties related to expressions of hostility, difficulties in adaptation to the role of student and difficulties relative to social interaction. The article also shows how, in recent history, interpretation of the relationship between conditions of social disadvantage and instruction has been based on different hypotheses. Each of these hypotheses (socio-cultural disadvantage as diversity of talents, as a natural handicap or as a disadvantage of the structural type; disadvantages due to qualitative-organizational characteristics of the school, the school's incapacity to provide adequate teaching or a damaged teacher-student relationship) has, in the post-war period, adopted different models for facing the situation.

The Croatian government has continued with its work aiming at curriculum reform with premier Plenković at its head: he has been given this task in order to ensure that this reform will continue. The Italian government has incorporated a law concerning the reform of national education tiltled as the „Good School“. The aims and means have been clearly defined, the tools required, the means of realisation and evaluation, as well as additions for teachers, schools and all those who desire investing in school infrastructure. There are two very similar realities in schools that have the need for the strong support of the community.

[A past that will not pass. Teaching history in a time of never-ending school reform] Introducing the journal issue on “History teaching today”, the article points at the persisting inconsistencies and shortcomings of educational policies in Italy and elsewhere and calls for cooperation between government agencies and academics.