According to the latest "Education Next" poll, public support for merit pay gained significant ground over the past year and now outdistances opposition by a 2:1 margin. Replacing the standardized salary schedule, where the only factors that determine teacher salaries are the number of years on the job and academic credentials, seems a worthwhile…

What is a school to do with children who are intellectually years ahead of their age group, their textbooks, the curriculum, and usually their teachers? When the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) surveyed states in 2008 about what they provide in the way of gifted education, it found the answer to be "not much." At least a dozen…

The idea that one of the Catholic Church's most respected religious orders might run a public school sounded odd, maybe even, as Francis Cardinal George, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, conjectured, illegal. But a decade ago several trends in American education, and in the Catholic Church, made a Catholic-operated public school seem…

Advocates for virtual education say that it has the power to transform an archaic K-12 system of schooling. Instead of blackboards, schoolhouses, and a six-hour school day, interactive technology will personalize learning to meet each student's needs, ensure all students have access to quality teaching, extend learning opportunities to all hours…

School reformers have made forward strides in the last ten years, and public debate has acquired a bipartisan cast. But just how successful have reform efforts been? The editors of "Education Next" assess the movement's victories and challenges. Two essays are presented in this issue's "Forum": (1) "A Battle Begun, Not Won" (Paul E. Peterson,…

Merit pay proponents argue that monetary incentives for better teaching can improve the quality of instruction in the nation's classrooms. Yet only a handful of studies have evaluated the impact of teacher merit pay on student achievement. These studies offer no conclusive recommendations regarding the optimal role of merit pay in U.S. school…

American 15-year-olds continue to perform no better than at the industrial-world average in reading and science, and below that in mathematics. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, released in December 2010 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United…

Teachers and their unions do not want test scores to count for everything; classroom observations are key, too. But planning a couple of visits from the principal is hardly sufficient. These visits may "change the teacher's behavior"; furthermore, principals may not be the best judges of effective teaching. So why not put video cameras in…

Several years have passed since the adoption by the United Nations of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Yet, what changes have happened in the lives of Indigenous peoples for whom the Declaration was written? This paper employs a framework of Indigenous educational theory to focus on the case of the Ainu of Japan and…

This research note is based on the evaluation of the Comenius project Teacher-IN-SErvice-Training-for-Roma-inclusion ("INSETRom"). The project represented an international effort that was undertaken to bridge the gap between Roma and non-Roma communities and to improve the educational attainment of Roma children in the mainstream educational…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dominant positions in the debates on globalization in American social studies education. Specifically, the paper illustrates that, first, globalization is conceived of as more of an unprecedented new age and less of a historical development. Second, it is conceived of as more of a natural process and…

This paper focuses on intercultural competence and dialogue across cultural borders between university students from different Portuguese-speaking countries. Various principles and strategies for intercultural education are summarised, and the project "cultures@esec", based on such principles and strategies, is described. The project was focused…

This article highlights how course material on "culture" and "intercultural communication" faces a distinctive challenge in crafting an engaged power-focused positionality for students. I discuss the importance of incorporating a "critical intercultural communication perspective and practice" into an upper-division diversity/intercultural…

This self-study intercultural learning resource has been created for facilitators of mobility programmes for young people. It helps youth facilitators to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that face the mobile young people they work with. Users explore the intercultural aspects of the "mobility" phenomenon from…

Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) has been discussed in Bolivia since the 1970s. The first Educational Act with a bilingual and intercultural curriculum adapted to cultural and linguistic diversity--Ley de Reforma Educativa--was passed in 1994 with implementation starting in 1996. However, discussions continued: when the Evo Morales…