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This chapter examines organizational and instructional responses of California's high schools to the introduction of a High School Exit Examination through interviews with 47 high school principals across the state. I found that most schools changed little about their organizational structure, and provided little support for students until after they failed the exam. Findings also indicate that the exit exam influenced the curriculum most significantly in low-performing schools and in low-track classes within higher performing schools. While the exit exam spurred some positive changes, it also led to unintended consequences inside classrooms.

This chapter examines the perspectives of culturally responsive teachers of immigrant and refugee youth in a high performing school in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Academic success in the region has been traditionally designated for ethnic Germans and nonnatives who suppress their culture and assimilate into normative German culture. Assimilating to normative German culture through the lens of global meaning making is a preordained social order that perpetuates exclusion for immigrants in society and school. The consequences of failed intercultural education in Europe have prompted increased demands to consider diversity in teacher training and to provide more equitable opportunities for immigrants. Gymnasium Baden welcomed a few Syrian refugees where immigrant youth represented one 10th of the population during the 2015–2016 academic year. In a broader context of limited access and opportunity to higher education among immigrant and refugee youth, this chapter examines teachers who interrupted existing frames and maintained high expectations and mindfulness for their students. The perspectives and voices of teachers who employ culturally responsive practices were documented through interviews and examined through the lens of Tierney's (2018) dimensions of global meaning making, more specifically the models of interrupting existing frames, critical literacies, and being mindful. Participants' perspectives interrupted existing frames and were documented against the grain of a conservative region that has experienced dilemmas of integrating immigrants and refugees into school and society. An examination of interview transcripts revealed teachers who maintained high expectations through an asset orientation and were overwhelmingly supportive and responsive to longtime immigrant and newcomer refugee youth.

We examine how school districts in California help their high schools respond to state accountability requirements. We discovered two contrasting forms of district interventions: those aiming to increase schools’ internal coherence and those encouraging direct but narrower responses to state requirements. Drawing on interviews in six districts and eight high schools, we find that many district efforts focus on immediate responses to state requirements to raise test scores. Yet, our analysis suggests that without strong district efforts to increase internal coherence, interventions aimed at eliciting school responses will be less beneficial over time.

The professional challenge the chapter addresses is Black, Asian Minority Ethnic Chief Executive Officers (BAME CEOs) who lead Multi-academy Trusts (MATs) in England need to navigate turbulence to assure all schools within their MATs are high performing. In the investigation of this issue, the structures of MATs themselves emerge as causing turbulence. Evidence revealed the BAME CEOs with track records of improving failing schools to outstanding schools interviewed in this research are working in partnership with their communities. These BAME CEOs sustain their high achieving MATs and/or take on more schools that need improving and lead their change to outstanding schools with BAME communities, non-BAME communities and diverse communities. However, they were not given the opportunities to build capacity for high-performing schools by the current MAT structures. Rapid change to the organisation of Public Education Governance Systems has shifted power from local authority governance to public corporation governance without addressing any of the old problems in the change (Brighouse, 2017). The rapid change has led to a clash of cultures between those with the values of generic Public Governance Systems who have not been democratically elected by the public and do not require professional educational credentials, a track record of being ethical teachers, and a track record of leading ethical teachers in ethical communities in school improvement from ‘Needs Improvement’ to ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. The rapid change has been hallmarked by a lack of full and free interactions and cooperation of the public in how the change in public education is being implemented. There has been no referendum on whether parents want their schools organised by their representatives they have elected in local councils or organised by public corporations financed by Private Finance Incentive (PFI) and Private Finance 2 (PF2) and operated by public corporations like Carillion.

Since the early 2000s, China has been actively promoting school collaboration to narrow down educational gaps between schools to achieve inclusive and quality education for all. Among the reforms, building education groups has become one of the most widely adopted approaches for school improvement. This chapter aims at visualizing a hybrid model of school collaboration formulated by both hierarchist and egalitarian approaches in the Chengdu City of China. It starts with policy review on the construction of education groups for education improvement in China to interpret how social cohesion and regulation are constructed at policy level to promote school collaboration. Through data collected from education groups in District A of Chengdu, it then provides an analysis of the practice of improving education quality through promoting education groups among public schools in this province. The study reveals top-down policy initiatives, bottom-up school autonomy, and a shared responsibility for constructing quality education for all are key factors which enabled education groups to contribute to school improvement. The research also reveals how a lack of policy coordination and limited shared value and trust within education groups have become barriers to this reform. It concludes by discussing possible solutions for further promoting a sustainable school collaboration based on experiences of some ongoing practices at school level.

Equity in education has been on the education research forefront for many decades, but there is now much more of a political consensus that investing in equity in education needs to be at the heart of education agendas. As the link between education, equity, and growth is becoming even more evident, so is the search for policies that can contribute to improve educational outcomes of the more disadvantaged groups in our societies as a way to strengthen social cohesion, development, and growth. While there has been in-depth analysis of system-level policies that can contribute to improve equity, at the school level, there is sparse comparative analysis of the particular role school leaders can play in the equity-quality agenda. This chapter focuses on the types of policies that can support school leadership in education for disadvantaged students and schools across OECD countries. It builds on qualitative and quantitative comparative studies that focus on equity (OECD, 2012), on reforms implemented across OECD countries (OECD, 2015a) as well as on data from international surveys such as the Project for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). More concretely, the chapter (1) reviews why investing in equity is not only a social imperative but also an economic investment; (2) discusses how different OECD countries reform in terms of equity and quality in education; and (3) explores evidence and country practices to conclude on how school leadership can positively influence equity in education.

Policymakers have focused on improving STEM outcomes for US high school students for over 50 years. Much of this focus has centered on improving the quality of STEM teachers, particularly in poor and minority schools. Few, if any, of these efforts have considered the importance of the content knowledge of those providing instructional leadership in schools – namely, principals and assistant principals. This chapter examines the percentage of school leaders with teacher certification in mathematics or science and the degree to which teacher and school leader turnover interrupts the leadership–teacher relationships. The study concludes relatively few school leaders have the content knowledge to provide deep instructional leadership. Moreover, the study finds combined teacher and school leader turnover greatly diminishes the sustained relationships between instructional leaders and teachers, particularly in lower-performing schools.

Improving Turkey's low level of education quality and achieving equity in quality education across its seven regions continue to be a monumental challenge. The purpose of this study was to document the extent of Turkey's regional differences in science achievement at the eighth grade and to investigate factors associated with these differences. Identifying the factors influencing Turkey's regional inequalities in student learning is crucial for establishing policies that will help raise the educational performance at the national level as well as close regional gaps. A series of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses were performed at two levels (the school/class level and student level) using Turkey's nationally representative data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007. Findings suggested that attempts to increase Turkish students' achievement and close the achievement gaps between regions should target the students in the undeveloped regions, particularly in Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia. Designing interventions to improve competency in Turkish and to compensate for the shortcomings of insufficient parental education, limited home educational resources, poor school climate for academic achievement, and inadequate instructional equipment and facilities might be expected to close the regional achievement gaps as well as raise the overall achievement level in Turkey. Using TIMSS data, this study provided an example of a methodology that may be employed to describe how student achievement is distributed among various subpopulations of national interest and to investigate the factors that contribute to differences in the achievement distribution.

This chapter examines the perceptions of school leaders of the School Improvement Zone (SIZ), a landmark intervention program intended to advance student achievement while eliminating low performance in 39 geographically noncontiguous low-performing schools in a large urban district in the United States. Primary components of the initiative include (a) a core literacy program that extends from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 and is consistent across all Zone schools, (b) a structured curriculum and instructional strategies that build across grade and school levels, (c) an extended day and school year, (d) the provision of extensive professional development activities for Zone school teachers and administrators, partnerships with universities and community groups, and (e) Student Development Teams to bring together social workers and psychologists to focus on prevention strategies rather than treatment for struggling students.