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.

This open access book examines the interrelationship of national policy, teacher effectiveness, and student outcomes with a specific emphasis on educational equity. Using data from the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) conducted between 1995 and 2015, it investigates grade four and grade eight data to assess trends in key teacher characteristics (experience, education, preparedness, and professional development) and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), and how these relate to student outcomes. Taking advantage of national curriculum data collected by TIMSS to assess changes in curricular strategy across countries and how these may be related to changes in teacher and student factors, the study focuses on the distributional impact of curriculum and instruction on students, paying particular attention to overall inequalities and variations in socioeconomic status at the student and country level, and how such factors have altered over time. Multiple methods, including regression and fixed effects analyses, and structural equation modelling, establish the evolution of these associations over time.

This book aims to make a contribution to the theory, research and practice on quality and equity in education by providing a comprehensive overview of these two dimensions of educational effectiveness and proposing a methodological instrument that may be used to measure the contribution that each school can make to promoting equity. The importance of using this instrument is demonstrated by analysing results of various effectiveness studies conducted over the last decade. The book draws upon research across the world, especially research conducted in the Europe, the United States, and Australasia. It is shown that promoting equity has no negative effect on the promotion of quality. The importance of using this methodological instrument to identify factors that promote both quality and equity at different educational levels (i.e. teacher, school and educational system) is stressed. The book also demonstrates how we can measure stability and changes in the effectiveness status of schools over time in terms of fostering quality and equity. In addition it underlines the importance of identifying factors measuring changes in the effectiveness status of schools in terms of equity and points to the alternative strategies that can be used at school and system level. In our attempt to encourage the further development and use of this methodology for school improvement purposes, we demonstrate how experimental studies can be conducted to discover whether and under which conditions the proposed methodology can help schools promote both quality and equity. Finally, implications for school evaluation, research, educational policy and practice are drawn. In this way, the book contributes significantly to the debate on how quality and equity can be achieved and encourages policy-makers and practitioners not to view these two dimensions of effectiveness as being in competition with each other but as constituting the major objectives of any reform policy and/or improvement effort at school and/or national levels.

Quality and Equity in Education draws attention to the importance of developing and testing theories of educational effectiveness and using these theories for improvement purposes. It makes a major contribution to knowledge and theory building in research on promoting quality and equity in education. The book presents an improved version of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness based on the empirical data emerged from studies testing its validity, claiming that the proposed theory can be used for establishing links between educational effectiveness research and school improvement. Towards that end, the book presents the Dynamic Approach to teacher and school improvement, demonstrating its impact on quality and equity in education. The book not only proposes an agenda for further research on developing and testing the dynamic theory of educational effectiveness but also refers to research methods that can be used to test the assumptions of this theory and search for relevant cause and effect relations. The agenda also refers to the need of identifying the conditions under which the dynamic approach to teacher and school improvement can have an effect on student learning outcomes. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in education research and the area of quality and equity in education. It will also be of interest to policymakers, school advisors and other stakeholders in education.

The International Handbook of Educational Effectiveness and Improvement draws together leading academics and researchers in the field to reflect on the history, traditions and the most recent developments in this dynamic and influential field. This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of: the foundations of the field the evolution of educational effectiveness theory and methodology the links with other research disciplines the links between policy and practice. In conclusion, the handbook sets out a new agenda for future educational effectiveness research. This handbook is an essential resource for those interested in the effectiveness of educational systems, organisations and classrooms. It offers academics, researchers, students and policy-makers new insights into the latest thinking and evidence about educational effectiveness.

(In)Equity in education and educational systems is a topic of outstanding relevance. Factors, like, for example, students' socio-economic status or migration background have been found to be strongly related to academic achievement in various studies and this is a constant finding in large-scale assessment studies - especially for Germany. Does educational inequity accumulate over a child's life span or what compensating factors can be identified? Not least because of the topics' timeless meaning the 5th Dortmund Symposium on Empirical Educational Research was focused on questions pertaining to (in)equity. Factors of influence and approaches to overcome (in)equity were discussed by an international and interdisciplinary expert panel, with contributions from Cyprus, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Germany.

This publication identifies some of the steps policy makers can take to build school systems that are both equitable and excellent. The analysis is complemented with examples that illustrate proven or promising practices in specific countries.

This book is a critical assessment of the knowledge base on educational effectiveness, covering a period of five decades of research. It formulates a “lean” theory of good schooling, and identifies and explains instances of “ineffectiveness”, such as low effect sizes of malleable conditions, for which expectations are highly strung. The book presents a systemic outlook on educational effectiveness and improvement, as it starts out from an integrated multi-level model that comprises system level, school level and instructional conditions. It offers a classification of school improvement strategies and scenarios for system level educational improvement. Above all, the analysis is very systematic, comprehensive and strongly grounded in theory. The book includes a case study analysis of various strands of improvement-oriented educational policy in the Netherlands as an illustration of some of the arguments used.

This book brings together the current thinking and research of two major investigators in the field of educational effectiveness. After defining educational effectiveness, the authors analyse the various theories and strands of research within educational effectiveness, especially with respect to the comprehensive model developed by Creemers. Written by one of the worlds leading experts in the field, this book will both elucidate our current understanding of educational effectiveness and carry the discipline forward by proposing profound changes to accepted views.

This book makes a major contribution to knowledge and theory by drawing implications of teacher effectiveness research for the field of teacher training and professional development. The first part of the book provides a critical review of research on teacher training and professional development and illustrates the limitations of the main approaches to teacher development such as the competence-based and the holistic approach. A dynamic perspective to policy and practice in teacher training and professional development is advocated. The second part of the book provides a critical review of research on teacher effectiveness. The main phases of this field of research are analysed. It is pointed out that teacher factors are presented as being in opposition to one another. An integrated approach in defining quality of teaching is adopted. The importance of taking into account findings of studies investigating differential teacher effectiveness is argued. Another significant limitation of this field of research is that the whole process of searching for teacher effectiveness factor was not able to have a significant impact upon teacher training and professional development. For this reason it is advocated that teacher training and professional development should be focused on how to address grouping of specific teacher factors associated with student learning and on how to help teachers improve their teaching skills by moving from using skills associated with direct teaching only to more advanced skills concerned with new teaching approaches and differentiation of teaching. The book refers to studies conducted in different countries illustrating how the proposed approach can be used by policy and practice in teacher education. Specifically, the book provides evidence supporting the validity of the theoretical framework upon which this approach is based. Moreover, experimental and longitudinal studies supporting the use of this approach for improvement purposes are presented and suggestions for further research utilising and expanding the Dynamic Approach for teacher training and professional development are provided.