Enhancing Educational Excellence, Equity and Efficiency Evidence from evaluations of systems and schools in change

Promoting high standards in education while striving for equal opportunities under the budget constraints - these are the new global objectives of education systems.
This book brings together research-based evidence on the effectiveness of major Australian, Dutch, and UK improvement efforts in education at both primary and secondary level, whilst making comparisons with similar US initiatives. The book addresses several major questions in this new environment. Those questions include: how to combat educational disadvantages, how to integrate pupils with special educational needs in regular education, how to implement educational standards initiatives, how to restructure secondary education, how to implement decentralized policy-making, and how to implement a class size reduction initiative? Finally, the authors suggest directions for future research in order to increase our understanding of what works in education and why.

1. Enduring Problems and Changing Conceptions.- 1.1 Enduring problems.- 1.2 A changing conception of steering.- 1.3 A changing conception of the effective school.- 1.4 A changing conception of evaluation.- 1.5 About this book.- 1.6 References.- 2. Changing Relationships between Centre and Locality in Education.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Deregulation.- 2.3 Privatization.- 2.4 Decentralization.- 2.5 A comparison of differences between areas.- 2.6 References.- 3. The Enhancement of Educational Opportunities of Disadvantaged Children.- 3.1 Prologue.- 3.2 The educational priority policy.- 3.3 The evaluation of the EPP.- 3.4 Recent developments.- 3.5 Epilogue.- 3.6 References.- 4. Integration Policy and Practice.- 4.1 Special education: current situation and main problems.- 4.2 Dutch policymaking concerning integration.- 4.3 The evaluation of the integration policy in The Netherlands.- 4.4 Evaluation.- 4.5 Reflections.- 4.6 References.- 5. The forthcoming Class Size Reduction Initiative.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Context.- 5.3 Conceptual issues.- 5.4 Studies on class size effects.- 5.5 The missing link between class size and achievement.- 5.6 Discussion and implications for future research.- 5.7 References.- 6. Quality and Opportunities in Secondary Education: Implementation and Effects of the Common Core Curriculum.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Theoretical background.- 6.3 Design of the evaluation.- 6.4 Results.- 6.5 Conclusions.- 6.6 References.- 7. Evaluating the Impact of a Raising School Standards Initiative.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 The external evaluation of the project.- 7.3 Action planning: developing action plans.- 7.4 The impact of MBW: Raising School Standards.- 7.5 Conclusions and implications for other standards initiatives.- 7.6 References.- 8. Systemic, Whole-school Reform of the Middle Years of Schooling.- 8.1 The need for reform.- 8.2 Characteristics and needs of young adolescents.- 8.3 Responsive forms of schooling.- 8.4 Strategic intentions.- 8.5 General design elements of a comprehensive school reform model.- 8.6 Translating strategic intentions into action at the school level.- 8.7 References.- 9. Review and Prospects of Educational Effectiveness Research in The Netherlands.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Research reviews.- 9.3 Prospects and new directions.- 9.4 Conclusions.- 9.5 References.- 10. The Future Agenda of Studies into the Effectiveness of Schools.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 The current criticisms of school effectiveness research.- 10.3 ‘Cutting edge’ areas.- 10.4 Conclusions: the end of the beginning.- 10.5 References.