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The United States retains many aspects of a healthy open society, but there are indicators of trouble and deep divisions around the meaning and importance of democratic values. This debate has significant repercussions for universities and their academic communities. In the most-simple terms, there is a red and blue state divide over the role and importance of public institutions, including universities -- red representing largely rural states in which most voters vote Republican and blue being majority Democratic voters, often with one of the two parties having majorities in their respective state legislatures. Then there are so-called purple states in which both parties are vying for dominance, but they are fewer in number. This brief discusses this contemporary dynamic and its implication for higher education and science policy.

Since 2020, the ETF has conducted multiple studies ('Future of Skills' studies) to examine how various drivers of change -- both technological and non-technological -- are affecting occupations and related skill needs in selected sectors and countries, and how education and training systems are adapting to these evolving needs. This has led to identifying (emerging) future skill needs in the chosen sectors, through a combination of traditional research methods and innovative Big Data mining. The methodology is a step forward in the use and analysis of data and fills an important knowledge gap by complementing traditional empirical methods of research. The sectors that were analysed include agri-tech in Israel, automotive in Türkiye, agri-food in Morocco, energy in Albania, Tunisia and Egypt, healthcare in Ukraine, construction in Armenia and platform work in the Eastern Partnership countries, the Western Balkans, the South Mediterranean and Central Asia. The studies on the future of skills in different economic sectors focus on the evolving skills needs and occupations driven predominantly by technological innovations but with a keen eye on nontechnological developments. [The report was prepared by Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini Srl SB and Erre Quadro Srl.]

Intersectionality highlights that different aspects of individuals' identities are not independent of each other. Instead, they interact to create unique identities and experiences, which cannot be understood by analysing each identity dimension separately or in isolation from their social and historical contexts. Intersectional approaches in this way question the common classification of individuals into groups (male vs. female, immigrant vs. native etc.), which raises important implications for the policy-making process. In education, analyses with an intersectional lens have the potential to lead to better tailored and more effective policies and interventions related to participation, learning outcomes, students' attitudes towards the future, identification of needs, and socio-emotional well-being. Consequently, as elaborated in this paper, some countries have adjusted their policies in the areas of governance, resourcing, developing capacity, promoting school-level interventions and monitoring, to account for intersectionality. Gaps and challenges related to intersectional approaches are also highlighted.

Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its holistic nature. Indeed, measuring inclusion implies analysing a variety of policy areas within education systems, while also considering the different roles of the system, the school and the classroom. This paper discusses the application of the input-process-outcome model to the measurement of inclusion in education, and key indicators that can be adopted by education systems and schools to this end. It makes considerations relevant to policy makers when designing indicators to measure inclusion, such as the extent of their application, the constraints related to data disaggregation and the relevance of intersectional approaches to inclusion.

School authorities, universities, and employers often schedule multiple tests on the same day or week, causing overlapping exam preparation and a dense testing schedule. This multitask learning can be intense, under pressure, and challenge the student's mental and physical perseverance. As a result, it can compromise performance relative to a more 'relaxed' schedule. This paper examines the consequences of multitasking for test scores and cheating in exams and its implications for the ability and gender cognitive gap. The empirical context is high-stakes exit exams in Israel, done at the end of high school. I leverage the empirical setting on two natural experiments to estimate the causal effect of this multitasking learning. The first exploits random variation in the number of weekly tests--the second hinges on days with multiple exams versus days with a single exam. The results show several important regularities. First, the number of exams in a day or a week harms test performance. Second, these effects are evidenced for high and low-ability students, boys and girls. They are much more extensive for immigrants than natives. Third, the harm of such multitasking is larger in tests later in the schedule, daily or weekly. Fourth, these effects are larger in tests of STEM subjects. Fifth, dense exams schedule increase the likelihood of students behaving dishonestly in exams.

The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (E2030) project's overall goal is that of looking to the future in terms of how school curricula should evolve given the technological advances and other changes that societies are now facing. Towards that end, the E2030 project centres on the idea that education needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to become active, responsible and engaged citizens. Mathematics is considered a highly relevant subject for achieving the above stated goals, as such it requires further and more detailed analysis. As a result, it has been chosen as one of the E2030 project's subject-specific analyses. The project has been named the Mathematics Curriculum Document Analysis (MCDA) study as per the request of participating countries. This working paper presents the findings of the MCDA study, which involves participants from 19 countries and jurisdictions.

Are teachers and principals aligned in their perceptions of the core components of the theory of Leadership for Learning across countries, or are there subgroups of schools in which there is misalignment? The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a congruency-typology model of leadership for learning is distributed across countries/economies using the TALIS 2018 dataset through examining the interaction of significantly different subgroups of teacher and principal responders through using multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with a cross-level interaction. I analyse data from lower secondary schools of n=152 635 teachers in 9 079 schools and their principals across 47 countries/economies. Currently in the research literature on school leadership, leadership for learning has emerged as a framework to bring together managerial, transformational, distributed, and instructional leadership. Yet little is known about leadership for learning across national contexts. This study 1) maps the TALIS 2018 survey items to the current literature and surveys for leadership for learning, 2) then details the methods and analysis framework to examine if there are multiple significantly different types of teachers, principals, and schools from a leadership for learning theory framework. The final model 3) identifies a three-group teacher typology and a three-group principal typology, linking these types to school context, covariates, as well as teacher and principal training and experience. Results relate directly to the intersection of research, policy, and practice for training and capacity of school leaders across 47 countries/economies globally.

This systematic review investigates the relevance of general pedagogical knowledge for successful teaching. It synthesises the empirical evidence of 10 769 teaching professionals and 853 452 students from primary to tertiary education in 21 countries. The meta-analysis of 20 quantitative studies revealed significant effects for teaching quality and student outcomes (Cohen's d = 0.64 and 0.26), indicating that more knowledgeable teachers achieve a three-month additional progress for students. The three themes emerging from 31 qualitative studies underline that general pedagogical knowledge is a crucial resource for teaching. Results also show that teaching requires knowledge about a range of topics, specific skills and other competences to transform knowledge into practice. Teachers need training and practical experience to acquire knowledge, which they apply according to the pedagogical situation at hand. The results allow for important conclusions for policy, practice and research.

The recent refugee crisis has put many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries under considerable pressure to accommodate and integrate large numbers of refugees. Refugee students are a particularly vulnerable group due to their forced displacement, but their needs are not always met by education systems, which can hinder the integration potential of these students. This poses considerable challenges as the integration of refugee students in education systems is important for their academic outcomes as well as their social and emotional well-being. The success (or lack of) integration in schools can also affect the future labour market and social integration potential of these children and youth. While there is a growing body of research on the integration of immigrants, policy-relevant research on refugee children and youth from an educational perspective is rather limited, fragmented and case specific. Detailed surveys and research projects focusing on the current wave of refugees that allow for cross-country comparisons are not yet available. Drawing on research from previous refugee waves, the paper examines key needs of refugee students and factors that promote their integration. It proposes a holistic model of integration in education that responds to the learning, social and emotional needs of refugee students. Furthermore, the paper examines what type of policies and practices are in place in OECD countries that support the integration of refugee students. Nonetheless, evaluations of practices and policies are often missing, which makes it difficult to assess whether they are successful. The paper finishes with some policy pointers on how to promote the integration of refugee students.

This paper explores the impact of test-taking conditions on the quality of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) assessment. Interviewers record information about the room of assessment and interruptions that occurred during each interview. These observations, along with information on interviewer assignment size and a careful look at interviewer effects, provide insights into the quality of the assessment. This working paper first describes the variations in test-taking conditions among participating countries. Second, it examines interviewer assignment sizes and the frequency of interruptions, finding that both vary markedly among countries (contrary to the room of assessment). The paper then looks at the relationship between these variations and response rates and engagement measures. While neither the room of assessment nor the recorded interruptions impact quality differences among countries, interviewer assignment size and interviewer effects may have a mild impact on results.

This paper explores the conceptual underpinnings of the routine disrespect shown to young children in everyday life in cultures around the world. General Comment 7 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child urges that the youngest children should be respected as persons in their own right, within an environment of reliable and affectionate relationships based on respect and understanding. This paper examines two case studies, from Germany and Israel, to show what such environments look like on the ground. A bibliography is included. (Contains 6 footnotes.)

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that enables them to play an active role in their communities and prepares them to make the most of lifelong-learning opportunities. Using data from the most recent PISA cycles, this paper explores changes in the share of resilient students over time (2006-2015); highlights the importance of school environments and resources in mitigating the risk of low achievement for disadvantaged students; and identifies school-level factors that are associated with the likelihood of academic resilience among socio-economically disadvantaged students. Analyses reveal that several countries were able to increase the share of resilient students over time, reflecting improvements in the average performance of students, or a weaker relationship between socio-economic status and performance. In the vast majority of education systems examined, the likelihood of academic resilience among disadvantaged students is lower in schools where students report a negative classroom climate. The paper concludes by exploring school policies and practices that are associated with a positive classroom climate. [This work was supported by a contribution to the PISA programme of work from Vodafone Germany Foundation.]

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by individuals' literacy skills, income and occupational prestige. However, education gradients in levels of generalised trust and in the extent to which they are due to social stratification mechanisms or cognitive skills mechanisms vary across countries. Differences across countries in birthplace diversity and income inequality are correlated with how strongly education is associated with trust in different countries, as well as in the relative magnitude of direct and indirect associations. In particular, the relationship between literacy skills and generalised trust is stronger in the presence of greater birthplace diversity but is weaker in the presence of greater income inequality.

This study uses the PIAAC data to examine the relationships between education system characteristics (e.g. early tracking and vocational education orientation) and distributions of adult numeracy skills. It also investigates the effects of postponing the tracking age and easing university access for students on a vocational track on the average skills and different percentiles of the skills distribution. Correlational analysis suggests that education systems with more students enrolled in vocational tracks have on average higher levels of numeracy skills and more compressed skills distributions between the 50th and 90th percentiles. Further analysis suggests that postponing the tracking age among 14 European countries does not have a significant effect on the average skills of the population. However, it increases skills for individuals at the 10th, 20th, and 30th percentiles of the skill distribution. Expanding university access is associated with an increase in numeracy skills, particularly for individuals at the bottom three deciles of the distribution.

We assess the relationship between general literacy skills and health status by analysing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international survey of about 250,000 adults aged 16-65 years conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2011-15 in 33 countries/national sub-regions. Across countries, there seems to be a strong and consistent association between general literacy proficiency and self-rated poor health, independent of prior socio-economic status and income. General literacy proficiency also appears to be a mediator of the association between self-education and self-rated poor health. While the literacy-health association is robust over time, it varies in magnitude across countries. It is strongest for those with a tertiary or higher degree and does not appear to exist among young adults (ages 25 to 34 years). Future studies are required to understand the contextual factors that modify the general literacy proficiency-health association.

This paper quantifies the religious factor in education demand by calibrating a political economy model of education finance and school choice in which parents who differ in the advantage they attribute to religious education choose from among public, private-nonsectarian, and religious schools. The calibrated distribution of religious preferences indicates that the revealed advantage of religious education is strongly contingent on its high levels of subsidization. The results of the calibration are applied to compare the effect of publicly funded vouchers that do not exclude religious schools--to which the Supreme Court recently opened a door in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris--with vouchers restricted to nonsectarian schools. It supports the implicit conclusion of the Supreme Court, that participation of religious schools in the Cleveland voucher program was essential for achieving its goal of helping low-income parents in a failing school district. Larger vouchers would have reduced the share of religious schools in the program, though they would still have attracted a majority of students. (Contains 40 references, 44 endnotes, 8 tables, and 4 figures.) (Author/SM)

The health costs of in-person schooling during the pandemic, if any, fall primarily on the families of students, largely due to the fact that students significantly outnumber teachers. Data from North Carolina, Wisconsin, Australia, England, and Israel covering almost 80 million person-days in school help assess the magnitude of the fatality risks of in-person schooling (with mitigation protocols), accounting for the age and living arrangements of students and teachers. The risks of in-person schooling to teachers are comparable to the risks of commuting by automobile. Valued at a VSL of $10 million, the average daily fatality cost ranges from $0.01 for an unvaccinated young teacher living alone to as much as $29 for an elderly and unvaccinated teacher living with an elderly and unvaccinated spouse. COVID-19 risk avoidance may also be more amenable to Bayesian updating and selective protection than automobile fatalities are. The results suggest that economic behaviors can sometimes invert epidemiological patterns when it comes to the spread of infectious diseases in human populations. [Financial support for this research was provided by the University of Chicago's Initiative on Enabling Choice and Competition in Healthcare.]

What is the nature of teachers' pedagogical knowledge? The Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey (ITEL TKS) set out to answer this question in a pilot study that ran in five countries: Estonia, Greece, Hungary Israel, and the Slovak Republic. Using convenience samples, the pilot assessed the pedagogical knowledge base of teachers, teacher candidates and teacher educators. Pedagogical knowledge was broken down into the domains of assessment, instructional processes and learning processes. The link between teachers' knowledge and characteristics of teacher education systems, opportunities to learn and motivational characteristics was also examined. The ITEL TKS pilot demonstrated the feasibility of researching teachers' pedagogical knowledge profiles across countries, and validated an innovative instrument for assessing general pedagogical knowledge in an internationally comparative way. It also allowed for reflection on potential adaptations to strengthen the design of future work. The results serve as a template for a larger-scale study to explore teacher knowledge and competences in nationally representative samples.

By 1985, almost 2,500 Ethiopian Jews, who call themselves Beta Israel, had settled in Israel, with more than 1,600 in permanent housing in 2 major areas. This mass immigration caused strains on Israeli society and on the immigrants. The Bernard van Leer Foundation funded the Community and Education Project for Beta Israel to assist in the absorption of Ethiopian Jews into Israeli society. Programs sponsored by the project included supervised children's play groups, morning and afternoon child care services, a homework assistance program, a home visiting program, and various adult education classes. The project received support from municipal social service agencies, but its relations with the Ethiopian community were hampered by internal differences in the community. Factors that affected the project included the absence of communal institutions in the Ethiopian community, and various community demands. As the project evolved, it developed an increased knowledge of the community served, professionalization of staff, and routinization of activities. Community changes that occurred during the course of the project included an increased autonomy of the immigrant community and its members, improved child nutrition, and greater independence for women. A review of the project considers funding issues and the moral dilemma that arises when a developmental agent becomes involves with another culture. A bibliography of 31 items is provided. (BC)

This study is a comparative analysis that addresses the question: to what extent has the relationship between parental socioeconomic characteristics and educational opportunities changed over time and why? The document suggests six hypotheses regarding change in the effects of social origins on education transitions: (1) modernization hypothesis: the effects of social origin on all transitions decline; (2) reproduction hypothesis: the effects of social origins decline on earlier transitions but not on later transitions; (3) hypothesis of maximally maintained inequality: the effects will only decline at those transitions for which the attendance rates of the privileged classes are saturated; (4) socialist transformation hypothesis: socialist transformations brought about an initial reduction in the effects, that will then be followed by increased effects; (5) life course hypothesis: the effects decline across transitions but are stable across cohorts; and (6) differential selection hypothesis: the effects decline across cohorts, but the effects on later transitions increase across cohorts. The 13 industrialized countries included in the study may be classified according to their basic cultural and economic systems into three major groups: (1) western capitalistic countries: United States of America, (former) Federal Republic of Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Israel; (2) non-Western capitalistic countries: Japan and Taiwan; and (3) western socialistic countries: Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Study results show that educational expansion facilitates the persistence of inequalities in educational opportunity. Tables summarize the major findings with respect to educational expansion and attainment, change in the effects of social origins on highest education attained, and cohort differences. (DK)

The European Training Foundation's (ETF) approach to promoting systemic and systematic quality assurance in vocational education and training (VET) is set out in this working paper. Quality assurance in VET is summarised by the ETF as the measures established to verify that processes and procedures are in place, which aim to ensure the quality and quality improvement of VET. The ETF uses the following definition of VET: "education and training which aim to equip people with knowledge, know-how, skills and/or competences required in particular occupations or more broadly on the labour market." The intention of this working paper is to serve as a resource for ETF staff and its function is to support a common ETF approach to promoting quality assurance in VET in partner countries. The paper will be made available to a wider audience with an interest in quality assurance in VET. ETF partner countries have signaled the need for more effective quality assurance measures to help improve the quality and relevance of VET outcomes. They aim to strengthen quality assurance policies and measures that support the development of good VET governance and management, good qualifications systems, good qualifications and good learning environments facilitated by good teachers and trainers. The main purpose of this working paper is to guide ETF staff to support partner countries in their endeavours to develop further their approach to quality assurance in VET. The paper has five chapters. The background to present-day quality assurance is presented in Chapter 1. Concepts important to the understanding of the ETF approach to quality assurance in VET are reviewed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, the evolution of European policies for quality assurance is summarised. The "status quo" of quality assurance policy and practice in ETF partner countries and reform needs and challenges, as presented in the Torino Process reports, are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents the ETF approach to promoting quality assurance in VET development, based on the conceptual framework set out in the preceding chapters. (A bibliography is included.)

We study the impact of financial incentives on higher education decisions and the choice of major. We rely on a reform whereby Israeli kibbutzim shifted from their traditional policy of equal sharing to productivity-based wages. We use for identification the staggered implementation of this reform in different kibbutzim. In this setting of very low initial returns to education, we find that the dramatic increase in the rate of return and its sharp variation across fields of study led to a large increase in the probability of receiving a Bachelor degree, especially in STEM fields of study that are expected to yield higher financial returns. For men this increase was largely in computer science and engineering, and for women in biology, chemistry and computer science. Our findings suggest that investment in higher education and the choice of major are responsive to increases in the return to education for both men and women. [Financial support from the European Research Council.]

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by indicating knowledge, skills and values to be taught to students. It may express not only "what" should be taught to students, but also "how" the students should be taught. Curriculum innovations can include new subjects, combinations of old subjects or cross-cutting learning objectives. They may also take a form of new content, concepts, sequencing, time allocation or pedagogy. This paper characterises two contrasted approaches to curriculum decision making and bringing about innovations in education. At one extreme, a prescriptive central curriculum implicitly places the initiative for educational innovations at the level of the central administration. This approach provides strong incentives for schools and teachers to adapt innovations that would not otherwise take place. Innovations, supported by policy measures and informed by research, are brought within the reach of all schools and teachers in an equitable manner. The challenge is then to accommodate local needs and ensure the commitment to and implementation of innovations by schools and teachers. At the other extreme, decentralised curriculum decision making provides schools--and perhaps even teachers--with room to create their own educational innovations. This approach allows for experimentation relevant to individual students and local communities. Innovations are meant to spread through horizontal networks of schools and teachers. The challenge is then to provide incentives for individual schools and teachers to innovate or adapt innovations and ensure that they have equal capacity to do so. The paper provides an overview of various possible approaches linking curriculum policy to educational innovation, it shows that OECD countries can mix these approaches and it discusses elements that can affect those innovations in reality. Focusing on public lower-secondary education, it draws on various OECD and UNESCO data. First, the paper suggests that OECD education systems differ clearly when looking at formal curriculum decision making, although no system relies on a purely central or school-based approach to curriculum innovations. Second, several elements can reduce the "innovation power" of the central curriculum and the "innovation flexibility" of the decentralised curriculum. Third, stakeholders--such as experts, teachers and parents--are able to influence curriculum innovations differently at central and school levels. Innovations in central-level curriculum appear to have widespread possibilities to rely on expert knowledge with consultation with practitioners, parents and the wider public. School level curriculum innovations appear to build mainly on principals and teachers' knowledge with an indirect influence from experts and parents. Annexed are: (1) Emerging Curriculum Themes in OECD Countries; (2) Approaches to Bringing About Competence-Based Curriculum; (3) Central Level Curriculum in OECD Countries; (4) Details on the Implicit Approaches to Curriculum Innovations; and (5) Roles of Parents in Decision Making on Education Policy. (Contains 13 tables, 4 charts, 5 boxes and 20 notes.)

Education plays an essential role in preparing the children of immigrants for participation in the labour market and society. Giving these children opportunities to fully develop their potential is vital for future economic growth and social cohesion in OECD countries. But migrant students in most OECD countries tend to have lower education outcomes than their native peers. Extensive previous research has described the system level, school level and individual level factors that influence the education outcomes of migrant students. Building on such previous research, this paper looks at the ways in which "education policies" can influence these factors to help provide better educational opportunities for migrant students. (Contains 7 footnotes.) [This review was prepared for the OECD Thematic Review on Migrant Education. It was presented and discussed at the Second Meeting of the Group of National Experts on the Education of Migrants in Paris on 13-14 October 2008.]

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather than systemically understanding collected from a larger empirical base (Berends, Cannata and Goldring, 2011). Different political groups use evidence that supports their positions in favour or against school choice, and their positions relative to school choice are largely based on their ideologies, rather than on empirical work and evidence of effectiveness (Levin and Belfield, 2004). This report steps away from the ideological debate and provides research-based evidence on the impact of choice on disadvantaged students and schools. As "only with data on the consequences of different plans for school choice will we be able to reach sensible judgements rooted in experience (Fuller and Elmore, 1996, p. 8)". It uses analysis and statements that are supported empirically and attempts to cover the widest possible scope of research, and provide responses to the key question of how to balance choice with equity considerations. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, 5 boxes and 13 footnotes.)

Do some forms of student (and school) assessment hinder the introduction of innovative educational practices and the development of innovation skills in education systems? This report focuses on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation and argues that it is possible to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing. While necessary, assessment based on high-stake examinations often acts as an incentive to teach or study "to the test". It may thus limit risk-taking by teachers, students and parents, for instance. The problem may be amplified if a system of accountability and incentives uses the results of these examinations and tests to assess teachers and schools. What should be done to ensure that the systems used to assess education systems do not stifle the risk-taking inherent to innovation--and that they foster innovation skills in students? This study proposes three main ways of combining assessment and innovation: 1) developing a wide range of performance measurements for both students and schools; 2) rethinking the alignment of standards and assessment; 3) measuring the impact of assessments on teaching and learning. One way of influencing teaching and learning might be to modify high-stake testing. Systems will adapt to this, and both teaching and learning will focus on acquiring the right skills. Rather than testing the content of learning, standards could relate to cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communicating and reasoning--with test/examination developers adapting those skills to subjects such as mathematics, science or literary analysis. Similarly, more use might be made of innovative assessment methods based on information and communication technologies, inasmuch as these may feature simulation or interactivity, for instance, at a reasonable cost. Focusing the assessment on cognitive processes rather than content would leave more scope for teachers to put in place innovative teaching/learning strategies. This does, however, assume a high standard of professionalism in teachers and an adequate system of continuing training and knowledge management. As a single type of assessment cannot fully capture student learning, one effective strategy might also be to multiply the number of measurements and thus relieve the pressure on students and teachers to perform well in a single, high-visibility, high-stake test. At the same time, this larger number of measurements could provide the necessary input for systems based on accountability, diagnosis and assessment of the effectiveness of innovative practice. Finally, assessing the technical standard of tests and examinations is an integral part of their development, but it is less common to address the impact they have on teaching/learning or the validity of how their results are used. Since assessment is an integral part of the education process, it is just as important to assess tests and examinations as it is other educational practices in order to achieve improvements and innovation in educational assessment, but also in educational practice. (Contains 12 notes.)

The first children in a family to attain a higher education, referred to as "first-generation students," embody the realization of social mobility. Previous analysis has often portrayed them as succeeding despite their family background. This research suggests that although they face many material challenges, their families are often a key resource, rather than a constraint. This research attempts to reveal what enabled the intergenerational cycle of disadvantage to be broken. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from Israeli families in which intergenerational mobility took place (N = 50). Employing a grounded theory approach, the analysis reveals that breaking the intergenerational cycle mostly concerns family day-to-day life, and that it reflects three main components: time horizon, interpersonal relationships, and family values. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

The purpose of this study was to determine how children at different ages understand the concept of temperature, examining particularly the logicomathematical aspects of the concept. In doing so, three developmental approaches were compared: (1) Piaget's structuralist approach; (2) Siegler's rule assessment approach; and (3) Anderson and Wilkening's functional measurement approach. In order to assess children's understanding of temperature via the three developmental approaches, tasks with two variables were selected, namely, heating varying amounts of water by varying numbers of candles. Subjects were 96 middle-class Israeli children aged 4 to 11. Findings, among others, indicate that there are both commonalities and differences in children's development of the concept of temperature across various methodologies. In the Piaget and Siegler approach, children's development proceeded from centering on one variable to attending to two variables without coordinating them to attending to two variables and coordinating them. In the Anderson and Wilkening's approach, development proceeds from integrating two variables via integration rules of first addition, then subtraction, and finally division. Children who concentrate on one variable via Piaget's and Siegler's tasks integrate these variables via Anderson and Wilkening's tasks. This suggests that the latter two approaches may underestimate children's intellectual capacities. (JN)

A partial survey of the literature on the economics of vocational training reveals three important lessons on how evaluations may be undertaken using data on pay, inputs, and outputs. The first lesson is that social, corporate, and private returns to vocational training in developing countries appear to be high enough to justify expanding training activity. However, training in industrial institutes and vocational secondary schools is less cost-effective than more formal firm-based training, at least in Kenya, India, and Israel. Also, Latin American data indicate that school and formal institutional vocational training may be substituted for one another. The second lesson is that in some sectors a more labor-intensive method of production is economically more effective than current methods. This may, in turn, imply the need for more--not less--skilled labor and vocational training. Further, given technology and output, unskilled and skilled labor appear to be substitutes, rather than complements, in the production process. The third lesson is that sophisticated function analyses are plagued by statistical and measurement problems. If they are not resolved, estimation techniques are unlikely to be able to pick up any relationship between trained labor and output among firms. However, there are alternatives. Many input and output measures such as performance rating and downtime are available for more modest evaluations. Training can be evaluated using earnings data or output and input data. In all cases, there are technical problems including sample size, control groups, the use of longitudinal data, and difficulties caused by labor mobility. A simpler before/after plant level study of changes in inputs or output associated with training may offer the most tractable evaluation. (112 references.) (Author/CML)

Gender planning and vocational education and technical training (VETT) in Palestine were examined through the following: review of available literature and policy-oriented reports, discussions with educators in the field, and roundtable discussion in which representatives of the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor and experts participated. The following issues were considered: development of an analytical approach to gender planning (gender diagnosis, institutionalization of gender, gender integration); historical development of VETT in Palestine (contributions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and the Jordanian Ministry of Education and effects of Israeli occupation); characteristics of VETT (target group attraction, fragmentation and dispersal). The gender analysis of VETT was organized around the four spheres of VETT as follows: the technical sphere (gender equity or pay disparity); the political sphere; the organizational sphere; and the research sphere. Special attention was paid to the following topics: VETT provisions; postpreparatory and dropout training opportunities; postsecondary training provisions; VETT and employment opportunities; Israeli occupation and demands of the Israeli labor market; UNRWA policy, welfare, and development; nongovernmental organizations, nationalism, and development; and Israeli authorities as decision makers. (Contains 24 references and 11 tables.) (MN)

In this paper, I examine how student academic achievements and behavior were affected by a school finance policy experiment undertaken in elementary schools in Israel. Begun in 2004, the funding formula changed from a budget set per class to a budget set per student, with more weight given to students from lower socioeconomic and lower educational backgrounds. The experiment altered teaching budgets, the length of the school week, and the allocation of time devoted to core subjects. The results suggest that spending more money and spending more time at school and on key tasks all lead to increasing academic achievements with no behavioral costs. I find that the overall budget per class has positive and significant effects on students' average test scores and that this effect is symmetric and identical for schools that gained or lost resources due to the funding reform. Separate estimations of the effect of increasing the length of the school week and the subject-specific instructional time per week also show positive and significant effects on math, science, and English test scores. However, no cross effects of additional instructional time across subjects emerge, suggesting that the effect of overall weekly school instruction time on test scores reflects only the effect of additional instructional time in these particular subjects. As a robustness check of the validity of the identification strategy, I also use an alternative method that exploits variation in the instruction time of different subjects. Remarkably, this alternative identification strategy yields almost identical results to the results obtained based on the school funding reform. Additional results suggest that the effect on test scores is similar for boys and girls but it is much larger for pupils from low socioeconomic backgrounds and it is also more pronounced in schools populated with students from homogenous socioeconomic backgrounds. The evidence also shows that a longer school week increases the time that students spend on homework without reducing social and school satisfaction and without increasing school violence.