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Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]

This paper is concerned with the strategies being adopted for vocational education and training (VET) in Australia and the lessons that could be learned for them from policies in other countries. Six issues are considered in the paper, each relates to or more of the objectives and particular strategies in the Australia's National Strategy for Vocational Education and Training 2004-2010: (1) Workforce/adult training and retraining in the light of ageing and shifting occupational structures; (2) Equity issues for indigenous and other groups; (3) Managing demand and funding so that priorities are met; (4) Developments in qualification structures and quality assurance; (5) Enhancing provider capacity to ensure quality and responsiveness; and (6) Regional and community capacity building. The approach taken was to analyse national strategies, policies, objectives and priorities of government agencies to provide a point of comparison with Australia's National Strategy for VET. Analysis was most focused on the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and limited for Canada, due to the decentralised nature of that system. Implications for Australia are set out by strategy. (Contains 6 footnotes and 2 boxes.)

This project on national standards and accreditation of career practitioners is set against a background of unprecedented interest by governments nationally and internationally in the provision of career guidance services. Currently more is known about the policy and delivery of career guidance than at any other time in history. There is growing interest in the relationship between career guidance and public policy because the benefits of career guidance to individuals, society and the economy have been recognised. In this regard, strategic alliances are being formed between career guidance practitioners and policy makers in order that policy commitments relating to the provision of quality career services are enhanced. Such an alliance is evidenced in the collaboration between the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Career Industry Council of Australia on this project. This project constitutes a very necessary step in a move towards a quality industry. The purpose of this scoping paper is to: (1) identify current standards guiding career practitioners in Australia; (2) review international work on standards including examples of best practice and advise on how this work might be relevant to the development of national standards and accreditation in the Australian context; (3) be informed by outcomes of national workshops, forums, and conferences 2000-2004; (4) identify the current membership requirements of professional career associations and bodies both nationally and internationally; (5) assess how prior learning or qualifications might be recognised and developed to fit within and meet the requirements of the quality standards; and (6) identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of national standards. To achieve this purpose, this paper is structured around four main sections--international quality standards, national quality standards, standards guiding Australian professions, and the Australian career industry. Following this a number of themes related to the development and implementation of quality standards will be elaborated. A number of issues relating to the development and implementation of quality standards and accreditation in the Australian career industry will then be raised. Appended are: (1) Glossary of terms; (2) Table of Comparative Competencies; (3) Entry-level Qualifications of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; (4) Standards of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; and (5) Comparison of Quality Standards Across Career Case Studies.

Growth in mixed-sector institutions offering both vocational and higher education qualifications is expected to increase given recent and predicted policy changes. This issues paper focuses on the provision and management of higher education in technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. Issues raised for discussion include the governance of mixed-sector institutions as well as ensuring access and maintaining progression to higher education without sectoral division in the institution. Implications arising from the Bradley review of higher education are canvassed and the authors are inviting discussion on a range of questions related to the nature of policies and practices influencing the provision of higher education in TAFE. A section listing the TAFE institutes that have been registered to offer higher education qualifications and their accredited higher education qualifications, at February 2009 is appended. (Contains 5 tables and 3 footnotes.) [Funding for this document was provided through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.]

"Can You Hear Me? The Right of Young Children to Participate in Decisions Affecting Them" emphasises that participation enhances children's self-esteem and confidence, promotes their overall capacities, produces better outcomes, strengthens understanding of and commitment to democratic processes and protects children more effectively. Participation provides the opportunity for developing a sense of autonomy, independence, heightened social competence and resilience. The benefits are therefore significant, and adults with both direct and indirect responsibility for children need to acquire a greater humility in recognising that they have a great deal to learn from children. But the case for listening to young children goes beyond the beneficial outcomes. It is also a matter of social injustice and human rights. All people, however young, are entitled to be participants in their own lives, to influence what happens to them, to be involved in creating their own environments, to exercise choices and to have their views respected and valued. (Contains 4 footnotes.)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. The Organisation for works with countries to develop skills strategies tailored to specific needs and contexts. The Organisation prepared a global skills strategy outline over the period 2011 to 2013. Each national skills strategy country project offers a tailored approach to focus on the unique skills challenges, context and objectives of each country. Each project leverages OECD comparative data and policy analysis, fosters collaboration across ministerial portfolios and levels of government while engaging all relevant stakeholders--employers, trade unions, and civil society organisations. In its paper "Towards an OECD Skills Strategy" (OECD 2013), the OECD sets out the main issues which must be addressed by efficient and effective policies for skills formation and skills use. The majority of material in each of the 13 case summaries presented here has been lifted mostly verbatim from original sources. These sources are stated at the beginning of each case summary. [This document is an added resource for the report "Identifying Work Skills: International Approaches. Discussion Paper" which can be accessed in ERIC at ED579874.]

We consider the question whether pupils from the lower social strata perform better in private government-dependent schools than in public or private-independent schools, using the PISA 2000 data on European high schools. In the eighty's, Coleman and Hoffer (1987) found in the USA that the performance of these pupils was better at religious schools than at comparable public schools. Dronkers and Robert (2003) found in PISA-data for 19 comparable countries that private government-dependent schools are more effective then comparable public schools, also after controlled for characteristics of pupils and parents and the social composition of the school. The main explanation appeared to be a better school climate in private government-dependent schools. Private independent schools were less effective than comparable public schools, but only after controlling for the social composition of the school. As a follow-up we now investigate, again with the PISA-data of these 19 countries, whether this positive effect of private government-dependent schools differs between pupils from different strata. We use various indicators to measure social strata: social, cultural and economic. We expect that the thesis of Coleman & Hoffer does hold for private government-dependent schools, because in these 19 countries they are mostly religious schools, which have more opportunities to form functional communities and create social capital. But for private independent schools, which due to their commercial foundation are less often functional communities, this relation is not expected to hold. However, the results show that public and private schools have mostly the same effects for the same kind of pupils and thus mostly not favor one kind of pupils above another kind of pupils. But private government-dependent schools are slightly more effective for pupils with less cultural capital. However, private independent schools are also more effective for pupils from large families or low status families. (Contains 4 tables, 12 notes and a list of 25 Literature Resources .)

Many countries have introduced a range of policies that attempt to reformulate the relationships among government, schools, and parents through the application of market forces. This paper looks at the hidden curriculum of marketization and explores the extent to which the recent trend toward quasi-markets in public education systems are permeating the classroom and affecting the nature of educational transmissions. The paper looks at research from England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States and explores the tension between the overt and "hidden" curriculum of the reforms and its significance for fostering different forms of social solidarity. The paper also connects with discussions on the globalization of education policy and/or broader changes in the nature of modern/postmodern societies, and the role of national education systems in encouraging and/or inhibiting such developments. (Contains 54 references.) (LMI)

The phrase, "digital divide," has been applied to the gap that exists in most countries between those with ready access to the tools of information and communication technologies and the knowledge that they provide access to, and those without such access or skills. This gap may be because of socio-economic, geographical, educational, attitudinal, or generational factors, or it may be through physical disabilities. A further gap between the developed and underdeveloped world in the uptake of technology is evident within the global community and may be of even greater significance. This paper examines a number of these issues at the national level in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, looking for evidence of the digital divide, assessing factors that contribute to it, and evaluating strategies that can help reduce it. The relevance of these strategies to developing countries, strategies for reducing the international digital divide, and the role of libraries in reducing the digital divide at the national and global level are also explored. (Contains 14 references.) (Author/MES)

This paper discusses fee-based services in public libraries. The first section examines examples of charging for public library services in three countries: the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland; and New Zealand. The intention is to consider the circumstances in which charging was introduced, the public's response in terms of the effect on usage, and an evaluation of whether the scheme is regarded as successful. The overall objective is to provide hard facts and statistics, in order that future decisions can be made without recourse to the emotional arguments of the past, which are largely based on purely philosophical grounds. The second section describes the Singapore experience, including: the rationales for charging, e.g., as a means of reducing extravagant wants to the level of realistic means, and for controlling the demand for the limited number of terminals for providing access to electronic information; the fee schedule for small services that tend to be free in other countries; the use of a national cashcard for payments; and other initiatives, e.g., the Home Delivery Service, three-tiered reference service with charges for higher tiers, creation of an inquiry database, and establishment of a call center to deal with remote inquiries. (Contains 33 references.) (MES)

This paper describes how the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Te Rau Herenga O Aotearoa (LIANZA) has mobilized the library and information profession in New Zealand to present key messages to the new government which describe a vision of how an integrated National Information Strategy (NIS) will help the government to realize some of the benefits of a knowledge led world. Highlights include: (1) the LIANZA Information Policy Summit (LIPS), held in December 1999, at which representatives of the library profession met to negotiate key messages from the profession that were delivered to the government; (2) the three main components in the New Zealand NIS model, i.e., knowledge access, knowledge resources, and knowledge equity; (3) comparison with the United Kingdom's NIS; (4) LIANZA activities planned for June/July 2000, including an extensive lobbying campaign to progress the NIS and a second LIPS (LIPS2); (5) LIANZA initiatives within the library profession; and (6) common themes in the changing workplace. (MES)

The concept of physical and chemical change is far from being the clearest and most self-explanatory concept in the world. If a number of chemists are asked to define physical and chemical change, there may well appear to be a fair degree of uniformity in their answers, until a few examples are suggested. When chemists are asked to place a variety of changes into the category of physical or chemical change, then differences inevitably arise. It is not difficult to demonstrate this by viewing school textbooks and articles about the topic. In spite of this, physical and chemical change is still taught in most in most secondary school courses. The problem arises from the definition and the historical layers of meaning that have grown around the concept, almost by accretion, without teachers being aware of their significance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the answers given by experienced educators to a questionnaire, which attempted to find out what the views of science educators/chemists worldwide about physical and chemical change now are. Four appendixes present: (1) List of Respondents; (2) List of Questionnaires Returned; (3) Physical and Chemical Change: An Information Sheet; and (4) Full Questionnaire: Interview Protocol or Basis for Written Response.

In today's world where tuition fees continue to rise rapidly and the demand for higher education increases in both the developing and developed world, it is important to find additional and alternative learning pathways that learners can afford. Traditional education as we have known it has begun to change, allowing for new parallel learning opportunities to take shape and new avenues to open up. This paper describes the world's largest online training initiative on open education that teaches wiki technology to educators in the formal education sector worldwide. WikiEducator, founded in 2006, initially operated with funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (WFHF) under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources, and technology. In May 2009, it became its own entity residing under Otago Polytechnic's International Centre for Open Education Resources under the auspices of the Open Education Resource Foundation (OERF) in Dunedin, New Zealand, where it continues today. WikiEducator's flagship, the Learning4Content (L4C) project, builds capacity among global educators by teaching wiki technology to newcomers and experts in the field of open education. In exchange for the free training opportunity they receive, participants are asked to create open content on WikiEducator and contribute toward WikiEducator's strategic objectives. The success of the L4C project helped WikiEducator reach its target number of equipping 2,500 educators with wiki skills to create open educational resources online two years ahead of the initially planned three years and was the reason for a large additional number of novices and experts alike joining the project. Even though many learners make use of the free learning opportunities offered through the L4C project, for those who do not have access to online content--or even computers--WikiEducator has developed a feature called "wiki-to-print," which allows users to select free and open WikiEducator content and combine it into a book that can be printed and used offline. Distribution of these print-based, compiled books provides an opportunity to those who do not or will never have access to the Internet and technology to gain access to knowledge and information. This paper will describe WikiEducator's stages of development and the outcomes it has achieved as the world's largest attempt to build wiki skills among global educators.

This paper reflects a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the JISC Innovation Support Centres, CETIS and UKOLN. The research underpinning the report makes use of the NMC's Delphi-based process for bringing groups of experts to a consensus viewpoint, in this case around the impact of emerging technologies on teaching, learning, research or information management in UK tertiary education over the next five years. In an effort that ran from January through August 2011, the team behind this report considered a wide range of relevant articles, news, blog posts, research, and project examples as part of the preparation for a carefully selected group of 33 experts that ultimately pinpointed the most notable emerging technology topics, trends, and challenges for tertiary education in the United Kingdom over the next five years. That group of experts, known as the Horizon.JISC Advisory Board, is comprised of an international body of knowledgeable individuals, all highly regarded in their fields; collectively the advisory board represents a range of diverse perspectives across the learning sector. [This paper is a collaboration with the Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS) and the United Kingdom Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN).]

This paper represents the second of two papers written as part of the National Standards and Accreditation of Career Practitioners project. The first, a scoping paper titled Shaping a career development culture: Quality standards, quality practice, quality outcomes (McMahon, 2004), provided information for and guided discussion at the National Forum for Career Practitioners held in Sydney on 25-26 August 2004. The purpose of the scoping paper was to: (1) identify current standards guiding career practitioners in Australia; (2) review international work on standards including examples of best practice and advise on how this work might be relevant to the development of national standards and accreditation in the Australian context; (3) be informed by outcomes of national workshops, forums, and conferences 2000-2004; (4) identify the current membership requirements of professional career associations and bodies both nationally and internationally; (5) assess how prior learning or qualifications might be recognised and developed to fit within and meet the requirements of the quality standards; and (6) identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of national standards. The National Forum for Career Practitioners began the consultation phase of the project. Participation in the Forum was by invitation, and invitees represented the stakeholder groups identified in the scoping paper. Represented at the Forum were groups as diverse as career practitioners, career practitioner associations, CICA (Career Industry Council of Australia), policy makers, consumers/clients, parents, training providers, business and industry, employers of career practitioners, and service providers. During the Forum, group work and discussion were based on issues identified in the scoping paper. Individual and group responses, opinions, ideas and suggestions were recorded during the Forum on activity sheets that were then collated (McCowan, 2004). It was not intended to bring closure on any items raised during the Forum, but rather to open up issues for the next phase of the consultation process to be managed by Miles Morgan Australia (McCowan). The present paper serves as a record of the Forum discussion, and as a bridge between the scoping paper, the Forum, and the consultation phase of the project. Four sets of issues were presented in the scoping paper and discussed at the Forum, specifically: (1) industry membership and associated terminology; (2) the development and implementation of the quality standards; (3) the administration, management and maintenance of the standards; and (4) the role of stakeholder groups. Each issue will now be discussed. First, a brief background to the issue as described in the scoping paper will be presented. This will be followed by an outline of the Forum process and a summary of the discussion. Finally, issues that may warrant further exploration in the consultancy process will be discussed where possible by drawing on the case studies presented in the scoping paper. Where appropriate, comments made by Forum participants will be included in quotation marks. Appended are: (1) Comparison of ethical codes; (2) Comparison of models of continuing professional development; (3) Comparison of competencies; and (4) Timeline developed by a Forum participant. (Contains 2 tables.) [For the first report, "Scoping Paper--Shaping a Career Development Culture: Quality Standards, Quality Practice, Quality Outcomes," see ED536209.]

During the past decade, funding mechanisms for universities and technical education institutions and colleges have undergone massive restructuring in developed and developing countries alike. Governmental support has generally decreased, resulting in greater reliance on fee-based education or creation of privately sponsored engineering/technical colleges or universities. The following are some of the trends that will likely result from changes in the funding of technical education: (1) export of education will become an important component of the economies of advanced, rich countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada; (2) privatization, commercialization, and marketing of education, especially business, commerce, and information technology will increasingly play a dominant role in developing countries; (3) quality management in developing countries will also move away from government monitoring to professional monitoring, as is now the case in developed countries; (4) the quality of education in developing countries will eventually be determined by market forces; (5) educational funding from individual family budgets will become increasingly difficult in developing countries as privatization results in increased fees; and (6) education will move from being a totally governmental activity to a more commerce- and industry-based activity and will eventually become a service industry. (MN)

This study investigates the ideas and beliefs of a small group of high school science teachers about student observations in the science classroom. Student views on science classroom observations have been previously reported on, but teachers and their students' ideas about observation is a very little researched area in science education. There are a significant number of students that do not consider observation relevant in the science learning process. The data for this study was collected from teachers and students in three 10th grade science classes. (Contains 13 references.) (YDS)

A recently developed model of validation (T. J. Crooks, M. T. Kane, and A. S. Cohen, 1996) is briefly outlined. It conceptualizes assessment as divided into a chain of eight linked stages: (1) administration; (2) scoring; (3) aggregation; (4) generalization; (5) extrapolation; (6) evaluation; (7) decision; and (8) impact. The model is then used to examine validity issues related to state or national monitoring of educational outcomes. Current procedures for the National Education Monitoring Project in New Zealand are discussed in some depth, with brief comments on validity issues in two other national assessment systems, the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress and the assessment system of England and Wales. The examples illustrate how assessment strategies are shaped to fit particular interpretations and uses, and how the choices made can limit validity for other purposes. (Contains 1 figure and 20 references.) (Author)