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Although global access to schooling has increased over the last several decades, Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which champions inclusive, equitable, quality education, is far from being achieved. Experts predict that if the global community continues to operate education systems in the same way, by 2030, only one in six countries will reach the universal secondary school completion targets, and approximately 300 million students in school will continue to lack basic numeracy and literacy skills. The 2022 United Nations Transforming Education Summit emphasized the urgent need for a complete overhaul of education systems to meet SDG 4 targets. One significant outcome of the summit was a call to improve student learning by transforming teacher classroom practice. This paper is the first in a series of three working papers meant to serve as references and conversation starters for policymakers and researchers as they navigate pedagogical reform for education system transformation in their local contexts. This paper explores various definitions of pedagogies, the lack of consensus on what pedagogy means in practice, and the effects of Invisible Pedagogical Mindsets on pedagogical approaches.

In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated assessments to measure student outcomes on those standards, and established a system for holding schools accountable when students failed to meet basic expectations. This system has helped Massachusetts' public schools become the highest performing in the country. Student outcomes in all tested subjects and across demographic groups have improved steadily over time, but disparities in achievement and attainment exist between the Commonwealth's most privileged students and their less privileged counterparts, many of whom are black or Hispanic. Without the MERA and its requirement to assess every student and publish aggregate academic outcomes, policymakers may not understand the extent of disparity or how to address it as student outcomes data are integral to understanding where Massachusetts' public schools have been, where they are going, and how they can get there. This paper illustrates the importance of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act and how it has positively impacted students over time. It explains why the current accountability system evolved as it did and why preserving the most important aspects of that system is critical if the state is going to fulfill its constitutional obligation to educate all children to a high common standard.

This publication was prepared as part of the Cedefop project The shift to learning outcomes: rhetoric or reality. The purpose of this research is to analyse the conceptual, structural and political factors influencing the transformation of intended learning outcomes into achieved learning outcomes. It is considered as a first step in a long-term research strategy aiming to understand better the conditions for high quality vocational education, training and learning. The research focuses on initial vocational education and training, in schools and apprenticeships, in the 27 Member States of the EU as well as Iceland and Norway. The research is divided into five separate but interlinked themes: (1) Addressing the influence of learning outcomes on pedagogical theory and tools; (2) Focusing on the influence of learning outcomes-based curricula on teaching practices (in school-based programmes); (3) Examining the influence of learning outcomes-based curricula in company training (part of apprenticeship programmes that takes place in companies); (4) Mapping and analysing the influence of learning outcomes on assessment; and (5) Developing suggestions for the way forward supporting stakeholders and policy-makers in addressing future challenges and opportunities in this area. This report examines how the learning outcomes approach is embedded in and promoted by theories of teaching and learning (epistemology, didactics, pedagogy). It aims to analyse selected theories and the way these are presented to teacher training institutions in selected regions/countries. This allows for a better understanding of the explicit and implicit assumptions made regarding the role and relevance of learning outcomes. Results of the research illustrate differences across countries in whether and how the learning outcomes approach is embedded in theories underpinning VET teacher training programmes.

Civic learning is an increasingly salient topic in research, policy, and practice. However, the recent empirical evidence on access to civic learning opportunities is limited. We build on prior research using survey items from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress civics assessment and provide descriptive evidence on disparities in access to three categories of civics content and three evidence-based instructional approaches. We highlight inequalities in opportunities by student characteristics, school characteristics, and state characteristics among a national sample of more than 10,000 8th-grade students enrolled in a course with at least some civics focus (controlling for variation in the extent of civics focus). Our findings conflict with most of the prior evidence regarding disparities in access by race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background, favoring Black students, Hispanic students, and students of relatively lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This suggests a shift in recent years, potentially due to an increased focus on equity. English learners and students with disabilities also reported greater access than their counterparts. Other findings include inequalities across school types, school location (city students reporting greater opportunity than both rural and suburban students), census region, and state testing policy. Additional findings are presented, and implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.

This paper describes high quality teaching practices in two schools that produce exceptional growth for all kinds of students. These practices focus on making the most of instructional time and exposing students to high quality content in a variety of contexts. They prove teachers don't need to choose between differentiating to meet students' needs and giving them access to grade-level learning.

By the time children in low- and middle-income countries start primary school, large socioeconomic disparities are evident in children's learning and development. Both pre-primary and home environments can play important roles in influencing school readiness and can contribute to disparities in early childhood development, but there is limited evidence on their relative roles in low- and middle-income countries. This paper examines how pre-primary quality, stimulation at home, and early childhood development vary by socioeconomic status for pre-primary students in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The results demonstrate substantial socioeconomic inequality in stimulation at home, more so than in pre-primary quality and inputs, although there is variation in the degree of inequality across different dimensions of pre-primary quality. "Double inequality" is observed, where students with less stimulating home environments experience slightly lower quality pre-primary inputs. There are particularly large pre-primary inequities in structural quality (physical environment) and less inequity in process quality (pedagogy). These results suggest that targeted investments in pre-primary education in Egypt are necessary to reduce inequality in school readiness but are likely insufficient to close the socioeconomic status gap in children's development. Investing in interventions to improve vulnerable children's home learning environments, as well as investing in quality pre-primary, is critical to address disparities in children's development. [This paper is a product of the World Bank's Education Global Practice. The study is the result of a collaboration between the World Bank and the Ministry of Education and Technical Education of Egypt (MOETE). It was funded by the UK Strategic Partnership for Egypt's Inclusive Growth Trust Fund and the World Bank.]

Franchised provision of higher education has been under the spotlight in recent times. Without shying away from the challenges faced by those delivering successful franchise arrangements, this paper shows how important franchising can be in extending access to higher education. The authors explain what protections need to be in place to ensure franchise arrangements work out for students. They end with clear recommendations to encourage more collaboration between franchisors, franchisees and regulators, such as the Office for Students.

A fundamental question for education policy is whether outcomes-based accountability including comprehensive educator evaluations and a closer relationship between effectiveness and compensation improves the quality of instruction and raises achievement. We use synthetic control methods to study the comprehensive teacher and principal evaluation and compensation systems introduced in the Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD) in 2013 for principals and 2015 for teachers. Under this far-reaching reform, educator evaluations that are used to support teacher growth and determine salary depend on a combination of supervisor evaluations, student achievement, and student or family survey responses. The reform replaced salary scales based on experience and educational attainment with those based on evaluation scores, a radical departure from decades of rigid salary schedules. The synthetic control estimates reveal positive and significant effects of the reforms on math and reading achievement that increase over time. From 2015 through 2019, the average achievement for the synthetic control district fluctuates narrowly between -0.27 s.d. and -0.3 s.d., while the Dallas ISD average increases steadily from -0.28 s.d. in 2015 to -0.08 s.d. in 2019, the final year of the sample. Though the increase for reading is roughly half as large, it is also highly significant. [This research was supported by grants from the CALDER Research Network.]

We use publicly available, longitudinal data from Washington state to study the extent to which three interrelated processes--teacher attrition from the state teaching workforce, teacher mobility between teaching positions, and teacher hiring for open positions--contribute to "teacher quality gaps" (TQGs) between students of color and other students in K-12 public schools. Specifically, we develop and implement an agent-based model simulation of decisions about attrition, mobility, and hiring to assess the extent to which each process contributes to observed TQGs. We find that eliminating inequities in teacher mobility and hiring across different schools would close TQGs within 5 years, while just eliminating inequities in teacher hiring would close gaps within 10 years. On the other hand, eliminating inequities in teacher attrition without addressing mobility and hiring does little to close gaps.

Only three out of five children are enrolled in preschool globally, and only one out of five in low-income countries, yet the expansion of preschool education came to a near standstill in 2020. To restart it, we propose a policy instrument called the Preschool Entitlement. It entails the right of every child to 600 hours of quality government-funded preschool education per year (3 hours per day, 5 days per week, 40 weeks per year). Existing preschool institutions and other organizations with legal status (public, private, faith- or community-based) can offer the child development program after a process of rigorous accreditation to ensure quality, inclusion, and safety. In other respects, they will have the freedom to shape the program according to local circumstances and local preferences. This makes it possible to supplement the daily 3 hours with additional hours of childcare that can be financed by families, local government, employers, national associations, faith-based organizations, ministries of social affairs, or others. In this manner, the Preschool Entitlement reconciles local autonomy with governmental responsibility for quality, access, and equity. In low- and middle-income countries, government costs would range from about 0.15 to 0.4 percent of GDP, and the benefits are likely to be significant.

India has the second largest higher education system in terms of institutions worldwide, despite having only 26.3% Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), including vocational education. It aspires to achieve a target of 50% GER by 2035. It means it would require a larger number of higher education institutions (HEIs), public and private, in addition to huge fiscal resources. At present about 75% of the HEIs are privately managed with about 66% of student enrolment. Though there is no provision of for-profit higher education institutions in India, many non-profit private HEIs are actually working as for-profit. They are growing fast and are visible too. Therefore, it is high time now to think seriously about the pros and cons, causes and consequences of for-profit and nonprofit private HEIs in India. India provides a big market for non-profit and for-profit higher education to domestic and foreign stakeholders. Already 160 foreign universities are working in collaboration with public or private limited companies in India. This essay provides an analysis of issues related to for-profit and nonprofit HEIs, including desirability, size, funding, transparency, accountability, quality, feasibility and sustainability, government policies, regulation, foreign collaborations, private investments, and incentives. The methodology adopted is analytical, comparative, and empirical.

We examine how different measures of teacher quality are related to students' long-run trajectories. Comparing teachers' "test-based" value-added to "nontest" value-added -- based on contributions to student absences and grades -- we find that test and nontest value-added have similar effects on the average quality of colleges that students attend. However, test-based teacher quality measures have more explanatory power for outcomes relevant for students at the top of the achievement distribution such as attending a more selective college, while nontest measures have more explanatory power for whether students graduate from high school and enroll in college at all.

The Global Partnership for Education's (GPE) interest in broader education workforce issues is situated within the context of the partnership's current strategic plan (GPE 2025), which recognizes "quality teaching" as a priority area within a wider system transformation agenda. GPE's work includes providing technical support in this area for the benefit of country operations, including the development and/or dissemination of tools and guidelines. Some GPE partner countries have shown particular interest in diagnostic or analytical tools to better understand the scope of their challenges related to quality teaching and the broader education workforce. Guidance in diagnosing the challenges of the education workforce and leveraging its potential for strengthened teaching and learning would be useful especially for those involved in preparing education sector plans or strategies, or specific programs aimed at improving teaching and learning. This paper: (1) Analyzes the guidance that prominent existing international frameworks and tools can provide for diagnosing challenges and strengths related to teachers and the broader education workforce. Special attention is given to tools dealing with teachers, teaching and learning and/or related policies and management, and for which several country applications have been reported. Challenges concerning the implementation and use of these tools are also explored tentatively through a set of interviews with professionals involved in their application and/or monitoring; (2) Attempts to identify the main gaps and challenges that remain to be addressed as regards the contents, methodology and implementation of future education workforce diagnostics; and (3) Suggests possible directions and considerations for the development of future education workforce diagnostic tools.

International partnerships have become increasingly important for the mission and goals of universities and colleges globally. Understanding the nature of these partnerships and the perspectives of their senior leaders is critical. Senior international officers (SIOs) at 59 US public and private universities and colleges and 4 non-US universities completed surveys regarding: goals and criteria for developing the partnerships; number and country of their partners; types of existing partnerships; ways the university/college promotes/rewards international partnerships; challenges faced and important considerations for developing partnerships; and recommendations to enhance successful international partnerships. The SIOs' insights and recommendations were reviewed and analyzed. The most frequently identified major goals were "enhancing the quality of research and scholarship" and "strengthening students' education and preparation for life in a multicultural world and global economy." Conclusions included the recognition that successful strategic international partnerships and effective policy will likely: need to expand in scale, scope, diversity, and complexity; require strong, committed leadership; draw on the research and pedagogical knowledge worldwide; and carefully consider the wide, unique opportunities and challenges of these partnerships for practice and policy.

METCO, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, enables over 3,000 mostly African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield to attend schools in three dozen surrounding communities. The program has been remarkably stable for decades, with enrollment rarely falling below 3,100 or rising above 3,300, and most suburban districts continue to participate each year. The primary funding for METCO is through a state grant. Through evaluation of data that is presented in this report, it was found that several minor changes could make the program even better. The authors recommend that the state simplify the grant formula, incorporate current enrollment figures, and publish information about Chapter 70 funds generated by METCO students. The legislature should also provide additional funds to support late afternoon transportation and cover the special education costs of METCO students. Some of these changes, such as basing the grant on current enrollment and covering special education costs, would also make it easier to expand METCO. To expand, the legislature should provide the METCO managers additional funds to cover the immediate costs of expansion and commit to providing adequate ongoing grant support for a larger program. A relatively small investment of education funds could allow the successful program to serve additional students and their families.

We present new estimates of the importance of teachers in early grades for later grade outcomes, but unlike the existing literature that examines teacher "fade-out," we directly compare the contribution of early-grade teachers to later year outcomes against the contributions of later year teachers to the same later year outcomes. Where the prior literature finds that much of the contribution of early teachers fades away, we find that the contributions of early-year teachers remain important in later grades. The difference in contributions to eighth-grade outcomes between an effective and ineffective fourth-grade teacher is about half the difference among eighth-grade teachers. The effect on eighth-grade outcomes of replacing a fourth-grade teacher who is below the 5th percentile with a median teacher is about half the underrepresented minority (URM)/non-URM achievement gap. Our results reinforce earlier conclusions in the literature that teachers in all grades are important for student achievement.

'Transforming the future' can have different connotations in different contexts, but here the author focuses on the way in which the vocational education and training (VET) sector is adapting, anticipating and activating change in response to future skill demands. This discussion paper explores how the sector assists learners to skill, upskill and reskill, which in turn actively contributes to the Australian economy. Without a doubt, the past few years have been both difficult and unpredictable for many, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other natural disasters such as bushfires and floods. This paper therefore also considers how the VET system has been able to adapt to these unforeseen events and what can be learnt from these responses and adapted for the future.

This discussion paper has been produced by Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), on behalf of all state and territory governments and the Australian Government, to inform the "2020 Review of the Disability Standards for Education 2005." This paper asks providers of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school age education and care services across Australia about their awareness and understanding of their obligation sunder the "Disability Discrimination Act 1992" (DDA). This includes questions of access and participation by children with disability to education and care. ACECQA's paper complements the broader discussion paper by the Australian Government about ECEC and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, and is provided in two parts: (1) part 1 is for all ECEC and school age education and care providers; and (2) part 2 asks questions that specifically target National Quality Framework (NQF) approved ECEC and school age education and care providers. [For the broader paper, "Final Report of the 2020 Review of the Disability Standards for Education 2005," see ED617747.]

The National Quality Framework (NQF) was established in 2012 to create a more efficient and cohesive approach to regulating early childhood education and care, and outside school hours care in Australia. The NQF provides a shared vision for governments and the children's education and care sector, and an agreed tool for measuring and monitoring service quality. It sets standards for safety and quality so that all children who attend services regulated under the NQF are supported to have the best start in life. This occasional paper discusses how and why the NQF came about, what has changed in the last 10 years, and future directions.

Digital learning, the use of computers and the internet to study courses taught in the classroom, is viewed by many educators as a breakthrough to helping those at-risk students stay in school and earn their diplomas. The flexibility afforded by digital learning, with students working on their own time at their own pace, is a way for students to meet the requirements of their courses while handling pressing responsibilities outside of school, problems at home or personal issues. Yet parents should scrutinize digital programs closely. Their quality and effectiveness vary widely. Students are poorly served by point-and-click assessments with no engagement, virtual schools with videos instead of real teachers and programs without pacing and scheduling support. This report presents ideas and examples of how teachers and policymakers across the country are using virtual learning to improve educational outcomes for at-risk students.

Countries and cities around the world increasingly rely on centralized systems to assign students to schools. Two algorithms, deferred acceptance (DA) and immediate acceptance (IA), are widespread. The latter is often criticized for harming disadvantaged families who fail to get access to popular schools. This paper investigates the effect of the national ban of the IA mechanism in England in 2008. Before the ban, 49 English local authorities used DA and 16 used IA. All IA local authorities switched to DA afterwards, giving rise to a cross-market difference-in-differences research design. Our results show that the elimination of IA reduces measures of school quality for low-SES students more than high-SES students. After the ban, low-SES students attend schools with lower value-added and more disadvantaged and low-achieving peers. This effect is primarily driven by a decrease in low-SES admissions at selective schools. Our findings point to an unintended consequence of the IA to DA transition: by encouraging high-SES parents to report their preferences truthfully, DA increases competition for top schools, which crowds out low-SES students.

The context for child care and early education (CCEE) changed rapidly in March 2020 as the global pandemic caused the closure of child care programs and schools, widespread job loss, and negative impacts on the broader economy and family life. Black and Latino families and families with lower income experienced disproportionately negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of structural racism and a history of inequitable systems. Many of the negative impacts of the pandemic have directly impacted families' access to high-quality CCEE. As leaders in CCEE consider the implications of COVID-19 for children, families, policies, and programs, a research, evaluation, and data agenda that identifies key questions, research methods, and data needs will be a critical tool. This research, evaluation, and data agenda can (1) alert decision makers to racial and economic inequities in outcomes and promote tracking of key equity indicators, (2) encourage the development of new projects and data initiatives, (3) support the synthesis of information across projects, (4) identify key topics for consideration that may be otherwise overlooked, and (5) promote the application of knowledge to planning and development. The goal of this report is to get input on high priority questions that can inform the field's understanding of the pandemic's impact on the CCEE landscape, including children, families, CCEE programs, the CCEE workforce, and the broader system of agencies, local organizations, and institutes of higher education that support CCEE. The purpose of this work is to develop and revise a research, evaluation, and data agenda that can be used by a wide range of stakeholders (state administrators, policymakers, advocates, funders, etc.) to prioritize research questions that need to be addressed and identify potential data sources to answer these questions. [This report was produced through the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research and Analysis (CCEEPRA) project.]

The aim of this essay is to advance understandings of current efforts to democratize disciplined approaches to educational innovation and improvement in the US and other countries, with a specific focus on the macro-level policy contexts of improvement research in education. In the US, earlier analyses examined these policy contexts from a contemporary perspective, with an emergent improvement movement in tension with an institutionalized evidence movement. By contrast, this essay provides an historical perspective through a "geological analysis" of US education reform. This analysis has the improvement movement atop macro-level policy contexts that are layers-deep, and as potentially integral to a public education enterprise that has been evolving for centuries: at the policy level, from "resource-forward" to "practice-forward" innovation and improvement; at the local level, from "school systems" to "education systems" to "learning systems." This analytic approach and framework suggest the need for a new discourse about efforts to democratize disciplined approaches to educational innovation and improvement in the US, as well as possibilities for comparative and international research examining parallel developments in other countries. This essay was prepared as a contribution to "The Foundational Handbook on Improvement Research in Education."

This paper is the first publication from a project focused on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment practices in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia -- what we understand these to be and how they might be measured. Based on a review of the literature, this paper explores current definitions of quality in VET, the factors that impact on the quality of delivery and the various measures used to make judgements about it.

Education is a crucial asset for a country's economic prospects and for its inhabitants. In addition to its direct impact on growth via the accumulation of human capital, it is a critical ingredient in producing an informed citizenry, enhancing their ability to obtain and exert human and political rights and their facility to adapt to changing environments (generated by, e.g., technological or climatic change) among other benefits. In this paper, we study education inequality in LAC (both in quantity and quality), assess how it emerges and amplifies or dampens existing inequalities, and examine the interaction of education inequality with other forms of inequality, primarily income and labor market outcomes. Our analysis is based on primary data from multiple sources.

To address the invisibility of schools serving highest-need students, ACE Charter Schools, a network of schools serving highest-need students in San Jose, California, partnered with Education Analytics, the CORE Data Collaborative, and Public Impact to change the definition of school quality, making visible the success that schools are achieving with highest-need students. Section 1, the "School Needs Index," explains the methodology for measuring the extent of support that students need to thrive academically. By calculating a School Needs Index for each school, educators, policymakers, and the public can gain a clearer understanding of the level and type of support that each school's students need to succeed. Section 2, Success Measures, explains methods to apply the School Needs Index to identify schools achieving outstanding results with highest-need students. The report also includes a series of appendices providing additional information about the analysis and the technical details that will allow other researchers to replicate the methodology. The hope is that the methods presented in this working paper will be immediately useful to educators and the agencies that oversee schools, providing tools to improve understanding of schools' challenges and their successes. [This report was prepared for The National Campaign for Highest-Need Students.]

The past informs the future. It achieves this in two ways: first, by providing the context in which decisions are made, and, second, by delivering the various experiences that enable discovery of what does and does not work. As the Australian vocational education and training (VET) system has evolved, the institutional structures and frameworks that are now in place may determine the direction of its next turn, while the willingness to learn from past experiences will dictate whether it will turn at all. 'The past informing the future' is the theme for the 2021 'No Frills' Conference -- a conference to be held online, because if anything has been learned from 2020, it is that the freedom to travel is no longer guaranteed. This 'No Frills' discussion paper reflects on some key developments in VET's past and how they have shaped the sector's approach to enduring issues such as VET's purpose, national harmonisation, and quality.

As part of its regulatory roles, the Australian Government Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is required to assess evidence of 'scholarship' that is put forward by providers, whether evidence of scholarship by individuals, such as teaching staff within the provider, or for the provider as a whole. TEQSA is seeking to review whether its current approach to assessing claims of scholarship and scholarly activity (as described in the Guidance Note on Scholarship) is adequate, or if the approach needs to be reconceptualised. The purpose of this discussion paper is to set out, for consideration by the sector and other stakeholders, draft principles that are proposed to guide providers in making claims related to scholarship, and to inform TEQSA's assessments of such claims. TEQSA's Guidance Note describes 'scholarship' as 'activities concerned with gaining new or improved understanding, appreciation and insights into a field of knowledge, and engaging with and keeping up to date with advances in the field.' This includes advances in ways of teaching and learning in the field and advances in professional practice, as well as advances in disciplinary knowledge through original research.' This discussion paper proposes a set of principles that would guide providers when offering evidence of their capacity to meet the requirements of the Higher Education Standards (HES) Framework in relation to scholarship. [For "Guidance Note: Scholarship. Version 2.5," see ED610488.]

Public two-year colleges serve as an important access point for two out of every five students enrolled in postsecondary education. However, only 40 percent of community college students earn a postsecondary credential of any kind within six years, limiting their opportunities for advancement. Hoping to increase student retention and success, many colleges are developing and scaling up evidence-based practices that engage students more effectively. Significant evidence suggests that high-impact educational practices (HIPs)--including learning communities, service learning, and other practices that deeply engage students--can enhance learning and boost academic attainment, particularly among students who are traditionally underserved in higher education. This report highlights efforts of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) to advance quality and equity in higher education by increasing the number of students who experience high-quality, high-impact practices, and measuring the results of these efforts.

The issue of quality in higher education has been a staple of conversation for centuries. In the current environment, this conversation is complex, involving many constituents and, at times, contentious. To explore and address the central question of quality, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has initiated a "National Quality Dialogue," a series of national and regional meetings, interviews with key leaders in higher education and a research and publications series. The Dialogue involves a framing and exploring of academic quality in relation to the future of higher education and accreditation. Both higher education and accreditation are currently subject to unprecedented public scrutiny and pressures to change. Public scrutiny of the success of higher education has intensified and comes from many quarters: media, government, students, research and policy centers and foundations. Higher education is diversifying, with emerging new types of providers and credentialing of educational experiences, beyond traditional, degree-granting colleges and universities. Emerging diversification includes a dynamic and changing student population, alternative approaches to teaching and learning and variation in how higher education is structured and operates. This paper briefly explores five major national quality conversations, offering descriptions of the thinking of five significant actors in the quality space: (1) higher education and accreditation, (2) research and policy institutes and foundations, (3) alternative providers (and alternative credentials), (4) the federal government and (5) employers. The intent is to make clear the essential thrust of thinking in each of the conversations and what drives them. The conversations are not mutually exclusive. Although they differ in some key respects, they are similar in a number of instances. This paper asks the following questions: (1) What can be learned that strengthens quality in higher education; (2) Where might the conversations lead going forward; and (3) What role might accreditation play? Developing a future dialogue on quality involves acknowledgment of the similarities in each of these conversations, as well as how each differs from the other.

This occasional paper is the seventh in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). It explores the quality of children's education and care services based on the socio-economic status of the area in which they are situated. The Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) is used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to classify services by the level of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage of their local area. This paper uses SEIFA as a proxy measure to identify services that are more or less likely to educate and care for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper begins by highlighting contemporary research about the association between socio-economic status and developmental outcomes, and the impact of high quality education and care on children from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It then outlines the quality and availability of education and care in low socio-economic status areas, analysing service quality ratings and reassessment results. The paper also examines differences across service and provider management types, and remoteness classifications. The detailed analysis suggests that there are differences in the overall quality ratings of education and care services located in high and low socio-economic status areas. Services in relatively disadvantaged areas are slightly more likely to be rated Working Towards NQS and notably less likely to be rated Exceeding NQS than those in relatively advantaged areas.

This article investigates the causal relationship between women's schooling and fertility by exploiting variation generated by the removal of school fees in Ethiopia. The increase in schooling caused by the reform is identified using both geographic variation in the intensity of its impact and temporal variation generated by the timing of the implementation. The model finds that the removal of school fees led to an increase in schooling for Ethiopian women and that each additional year of schooling led to a reduction in fertility. An investigation of the underlying mechanisms linking schooling and fertility finds that the decline in fertility is associated with an increase in labor market opportunity and a reduction in women's ideal number of children. [This paper is a product of the Knowledge and Strategy Team, Development Economics.]

Fully online and hybrid study programmes have emerged at a rapid rate across higher education. However, the negative experience of some students, instructors and institutions with emergency remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to public concerns over the quality of digital study programmes. As a result, public authorities across the OECD have started to reflect on how to embed the quality assurance (QA) of digital education into their existing QA frameworks for higher education. This Working Paper aims to assist policy makers as they seek to adapt their higher education QA systems to digital education by: reviewing the advice and guidance provided by international and regional quality assurance organisations; analysing the standards and indicators for digital higher education developed by QA agencies; identifying trends and best practice from higher education institutions for the quality management of digital study programmes; and discussing how public authorities can support institutions to enhance their internal quality management policies and processes for digital teaching and learning.

This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how governors are acting to strengthen equity and access to these programs. It also includes a number of resources for interested policy makers.

High-impact practices, such as learning communities, capstones, undergraduate research, and community-based experiences, are effective pedagogies. Most of these practices have been around for decades. By clustering the effective elements of these activities through the term "high-impact practices," we bring together elements which we know are effective pedagogies, without weight to any one practice over another. The vast majority of campuses can proudly point to multiple high-impact practices happening somewhere within their institutions, not just one or two. Thus, to talk singularly about high-impact practices--and the assessment of them--would be like evaluating just one tire on a car. To ultimately understand what makes an institution move requires looking at all of the moving parts. And given the intense focus across institutions of higher education on identifying, tagging, and touting their high-impact practices, assessment is what will separate the committed practitioners from the casual adopters. A good assessment plan for high-impact practices starts with acknowledging three things. One, the name alone does not make them high-impact. Two, evidence of effect requires assessing more than outcomes, alone. And three, assessment must be, at every stage, attentive to equity. Building upon these three ideas, this Occasional Paper outlines a process of effectively assessing high-impact practices at your institution.

This report asserts that every child--regardless of race, income, or opportunity--should have consistent access to high-quality learning experiences from birth and provides a roadmap toward change at scale, including the development of residency programs and improved compensation for the infant/toddler workforce.

Dual language learners make up an increasing share of preschool students, but they often perform worse than monolingual students on assessments measuring school achievement. This study compares Head Start classrooms implementing either the dual language model or the English with home language support model. The author examines how the models affect gains in English or Spanish oral proficiency over a school year and how classroom organization and quality affect potential proficiency gains. Students in dual language classrooms showed significantly greater average gains from pretest to posttest in English oral proficiency and Spanish oral proficiency than did students in classrooms using the English with home language support model. The difference was even more pronounced among classrooms with low organization. Findings highlight the need for professional development on language model use to ensure consistency in delivery. [This work was funded through the Young Scholars Award.]

Early care and education (ECE) teachers are paid strikingly low wages yet are increasingly expected to advance children's learning by offering high-quality classroom environments. Teachers' capacities to provide high-quality instruction should be affected by the stressors they encounter and the supports they receive. This study describes ECE teacher supports, experiences, and well-being in a sample of teachers serving 4-year-olds from families with low incomes in a mixed-delivery ECE system in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We find that teachers who reported high levels of teamwork among colleagues and those who reported more wellness supports in the workplace had classrooms that scored higher on observed quality; teachers who reported more depressive symptoms scored lower on observed classroom quality. If these findings are replicated in other samples--using additional measures of ECE teacher supports, experiences, and well-being--they point to areas ripe for investment in ECE teacher professional development and workplace supports. [Additional funding was provided by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the current landscape in early childhood care and education and spark discussion and debate around potential areas for KIX investment. The paper is part of a series of discussion papers, drafted to support the engagement and consultation of developing country partners and technical experts in the initial design of the GPE Knowledge and Innovation Exchange. The ideas presented in the initial version of the paper served as a starting point for discussion and were modified significantly based on the consultation process, resulting in this updated version.

In low-income countries, private schools are perceived as superior alternatives to the public sector, often improving achievement at a fraction of the cost. It is unclear whether private schools are as effective in middle-income countries where the public sector has relatively more resources. To address this gap, this paper takes advantage of lottery-based admissions in first grade for a Mexico City private school that targets and subsidizes attendance for low-income children. Over three years, selected students via lottery scored 0.21 standard deviation higher than those not selected in literacy tests, corresponding to a normalized gain of one-half of a grade level every two years. Lottery winners also statistically outperformed those not selected in math, but the gains were more modest. Relative to the control group, parents of selected students were more satisfied with their school and had higher educational expectations for their children. Unlike findings from low-income countries, these gains came at increased cost--twice as much on a per pupil basis relative to public schools. Additional analyses indicate gains made by the lowest income students in the sample help explain the school's impact. This suggests private schools could bring down persistent achievement gaps in these countries, but puts into question the validity of implementation at scale. [This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice.]