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More than five years have passed since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 by then‐Secretary of Education Terrance Bell's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Those years have seen the publication of an enormous body of both primary material, composed of research reports, essays, and federal and state reform proposals and reports; and secondary material, composed of summaries and reviews of the original reform reports and reports about effective programs that are based on reform recommendations. This annotated bibliography seeks to identify, briefly describe, and organize in a useful manner those publications dealing with K‐12 education reform and improvement. The overall purposes of this article are to bring organization to that list, and also to trace relationships and influences from the federal initiatives to the states and professional associations, and from there to the school districts and individual schools.

This paper aims to examine and compare the school excellence model (SEM) approach adopted by Singapore and the school‐based management (SBM) approach adopted by Hong Kong. It discusses the implications of such a strategy and the challenges that both Singapore and Hong Kong schools face in navigating a new paradigm of managerialism while satisfying the requirements of quality assurance.

This paper utilises a comparative approach to analyse the development of educational quality assurance and the movement to decentralise power to the schools in Singapore and Hong Kong. The framework of analysis involves: approach to decentralisation; effects of education marketisation; school leaders, teachers and the profitable use of quality models.

Both Singapore and Hong Kong utilise a centralised decentralisation approach though with different intent. Education marketisation accentuates the underlying dynamics of fierce competition and accountability through performance indicators. To use the quality models profitably, the main challenge will be for schools to satisfy the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.

The comparative study of Singapore and Hong Kong serves as a mirror to other developing countries in understanding how a quality framework coupled with self‐assessment and external inspections can lead to changes in the school system, both positive ones and undesirable side‐effects.

The first comparative study between Singapore's school excellence model with Hong Kong's school‐based management.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight three important insights into educational quality assurance, using Singapore as a case study. It is useful to policy makers and practitioners to understand the phases and paradoxes in their educational quality assurance journey so that they may recognise and manage better the complex dynamics of quality assurance in education.

This paper utilises a phase model to analyse the development of quality assurance and the challenges and paradoxes involved. This phase model is a framework of analysis of the quality assurance dynamics of primary and secondary education in Singapore with the following phases: standardisation; local accountability; and diversity and innovation

The paper finds that: quality assurance develops in phases, each with its own characteristics and challenges; quality assurance changes the nature of education; quality assurance is a paradoxical journey.

The Singapore case study serves as a mirror to other developing countries in recognising and managing the delicate dynamics of quality assurance.

The paper illustrates the phase model of educational quality assurance in Singapore and the analysis of the delicate balancing act between conformity and diversity, and between standards and innovation.

Throughout Latin America, policy-makers are struggling to reconcile two conflicting political pressures: (i) the push to become more globally competitive on the basis of international assessments such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and (ii) the simultaneous need to address long-standing, entrenched inequities in both educational quality and access throughout much of the region. This chapter documents how policy-making elites throughout Latin America are trying to address these two goals by incorporating “evidence-based” policy solutions that can be empirically defended as promoting equity. However, scholars throughout Latin America argue that instead of promoting equity, an increasing focus on accountability in educational policy at the national level throughout the region has resulted instead in a shift in priorities from the governance of educational systems to evaluation of those systems, with the state functioning primarily as an Evaluative State. This argument is developed through secondary analysis of the Hispanophone and Lusophone academic education literatures of Latin America, whose robust and rigorous studies of these trends at both national and regional levels remain little explored within the Anglophone academic tradition.

Australian universities have a rich history for enabling, promoting and evaluating innovation and excellence in learning and teaching. Universities have used this practice to respond to drivers from government and the changing global educational environment, as well as accommodating for the characteristics of Australian universities such as scale, equity of access and the balance of domestic and international students. Often through institutional collaborations, educators have challenged pedagogical practices and introduced and tested innovative ways to enhance student learning, which has contributed to an international reputation for quality learning and teaching. However, the recent removal of specific government funding to support innovation, the increased emphasis on student success and employability outcomes and the threat of performance-based funding means that Australian universities will need to commit to the ongoing development of learning and teaching and demonstrate the potential for learning gain.

This chapter shows, from a comprehensive and dynamic approach, a unitary idea of Europe that shatters the fragmentation and reification of the old continent that is being politically projected. The research, based on a brief overview of the geopolitical and territorial diversity of the Western European countries, recovers the cartographic representation of Europe made by Sebastian Münster in 1544. It aims to represent a renewed area that has strengthened its international presence, based on the legitimization of divergent trajectories explained through interactive logics.

The political agenda for socio-educational issues portrays the contextual diversity that rules the governance of the Western European education systems. At the same time, it shows unification regarding inclusive institutional paradigms where the most significant achievements are accomplished within the European strategic framework. The research allows us to move on from the nationalist–post-nationalist option. Part of the European scene from which present and future lines of joint action are extracted in relation to sustainability, economic digitization and/or reformulation of the social system model.

The need for social and emotional learning (SEL) has never been so clear. The growing understanding of its benefits has been made more evident by the stronger focus of state, district, and school leaders, educators, and families to leverage SEL as a strategy to promote emotional well-being, to combat systemic and interpersonal inequities, and to engage students in positive learning environments. With this urgency to use SEL practices, now is the time to ensure a focus on creating environments and experiences that promote social and emotional development and deepening understanding of the motivational factors that promote student and adult success. Motivation researchers have been studying the motivational elements – and associated interventions – that better equip youth and adults to engage in their learning environments, suggesting the importance that the two fields learn with and from each other. The introductory chapter of the volume, Motivating the SEL Field Forward Through Equity, explores the intersections and accelerators of the two fields to create optimal learning environments and experiences for all youth. Specifically, we provide a high-level overview of the two fields, including ways each field takes into account personal development in relation to context and culture. We further explore ways in which the two fields intersect, elevating the importance of understanding the role of equity and excellence in research and practice. We then focus on one approach that we believe elevates equity of voice in research – research–practice partnerships. Finally, we highlight how this volume is organized.

The paper attempts to synthesise the features of the model for quality management in education based on the approaches spelt out in four well‐articulated methodologies for the practice of quality in higher education. Each methodology contributes to different views of education from the learners’ and the institution's perspectives, providing elements for the model. The thrust of the model is a “transformative” approach to bring about a fundamental change in students’ understanding. In the opinion of the authors the four approaches lend themselves to be synergistically combined to form the elements of the model, which establishes the basis for quality in education in universities. This provides a prima facie validity for the synthesis of a model. A more comprehensive specification for a model for quality could be developed based on an extensive study of educational research literature.

The purpose of the article is to call upon educational leaders to consider the forces that hinder hope‐giving and to consider viewing their work as inspiring warranted hope among their constituents in situations of well‐defined reality.

The author argues that hope is an essential component of leader agency which when unhindered and defined in a multidimensional fashion may be used to transform the experiences of learning communities.

The author argues that leaders who foster warranted hope in constituents will gain transformational leverage to improve educational practice and the experiences of learners and their communities.

The author provides leaders with an overview of the utility of a reality‐based notion of hope that may serve to legitimate and focus constituent energies and make sense of key organizational challenges.

Provides a unique framing and synthesis of the multi‐dimensional concept of hope into the context of educational leadership, association with relevant allied constructs, and the challenges of education in the twenty‐first century.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is critical for students' social and academic success. Students' SEL is often contingent on their teachers' social and emotional competencies and capacities (SECC; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Chapter 5) and teacher preparation to facilitate SEL in classrooms (Schonert-Reichl, Kitil, & Hanson-Peterson, 2017). Concerningly, teacher training to facilitate SEL is frequently predicated on a color-evasive perspective that ignores the ways structural racism impacts the schooling experiences of racially minoritized students and associated academic and SEL outcomes (Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Borowski, 2018; Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Williams, 2019). In order to support SEL for students from racially minoritized communities, we assert that teachers' social and emotional competencies and capacities must incorporate a culturally responsive pedagogical approach that explicitly acknowledges and addresses issues of race and justice (Jagers et al., 2019; Ladson-Billings, 2014; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In this chapter we (1) provide an overview of culturally relevant pedagogy in relation to teacher social and emotional competencies and capacities; (2) outline existing models that support a culturally relevant approach to teacher social and emotional competencies and capacities; and (3) discuss future directions for education research, practice, and policy.