This article presents an account of the development of competency standards and profiles for primary teachers in Vietnam. The development project has taken more than four years and used a combination of consultative, actuarial, and item response modeling procedures to develop and validate a scale of teacher competence. In the overall project, more…

The curriculum landscape in Singapore has been undergoing significant changes recently. While there exists a national curriculum and a central curriculum agency, the Curriculum Planning and Development Division (CPDD) within the Ministry of Education (MoE), there is a movement toward what is termed "school-based curriculum development." This…

The current curriculum reform agenda in Hong Kong is enmeshed in the politics of a post-colonial society. Yet, there is not a single view of what post-coloniality means for Hong Kong's school curriculum. This article focuses on analyzing the curriculum reform agenda that has emerged in post-colonial Hong Kong. This agenda was not only…

In China, the most recent curriculum reform of basic education began with the National Congress of Education held by the Chinese central government in 1999. Since the decision to implement well-rounded quality education nation-wide, which was made by the central government at that congress, curriculum reform has been emerging as a centerpiece of…

The purpose of this study is to explain the formulation, implementation, and outcome of Ethiopia's instructional language policy in light of the PRINCE system of power analysis as adapted by Fowler (2004), along with several literature references pertinent to the issue. After providing a brief background on Ethiopia and its education and language…

This article reports findings from formative assessments of one state's administrator mentoring and induction program during two years of program piloting in 2002/03 and 2003/04. The purpose of this evaluation research was to establish baseline data and to detect problem areas, so that changes could be made in subsequent years. More broadly, the…

Accountability and assessment are critical components to the success of schools today. As leaders of school districts, superintendents in Texas and across the nation are faced daily with meeting this challenge. While doing so, they must remember that their priority commitment is not to testing programs, but to helping children achieve.…

The current study emphasizes the significance of the positive job experiences that promote individuals' satisfaction on the job and the potential contribution of the transformational leadership style for the shaping of these experiences. Questionnaires were administered to elementary school teachers in five of the six districts comprising the…

In this article, the authors argue that no matter how well a reform is conceptualized and planned, it is in the frontline schools and classrooms that the reform goals and strategies are tried out, reflected on, and refined. This article reports on a study of reforms that were carried out in one local primary school in Hong Kong. The study seeks to…

This article reports on a study of Illinois school board presidents' perspectives on teacher tenure. It begins with an historical overview of the development of teacher tenure from its roots in the 1880s civil service legislation through the establishment of teacher tenure in the United States to an examination of current teacher tenure laws and…

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), for the comparative analysis of alumni teachers. This article shows how SASS can be used as an evaluative tool by any institution that wants to appraise its alumni in comparison to those of its parallel institutions for the purposes of…

In recent decades, a number of factors have contributed to the growth of alternative educational programs in urban settings. Public perception of cities as dangerous places and national media attention to high profile incidents of school violence are two influences. Here, Tallerico and Burstyn center on a subset of in-depth interview data provided…

Policy changes in state pension programs for public school educators typically affect not only current and future retirees, but also social conditions, labor market forces, and professional preparation and state licensing. A review of the literature, however, reveals that surprisingly little research has been conducted on the development,…

Teachers, administrators and policy makers at all levels of public education remain challenged to devise more effective ways to optimize teacher performance and, thereby, student achievement. Numerous professional organizations and teacher training agencies have long been advocates of high levels of teacher interaction and have formally adopted…

In the twenty-first century, school improvement is the focal point for educational leadership, in which the school building administrator is recognized as the catalyst for this necessary improvement. Within the area of teacher evaluation, the evaluation tools, along with the amount of time, format, and feedback, have changed dramatically from the…