The restructuring of schools systems across the world has been controversial. Have reforms been driven by a desire to cut educational budgets or the need to improve the quality of educational provision? This book explores the restructuring movement, with a particular emphasis on how decentralisation of power has affected the quality of education. It provides a broad and international picture of educational reform.

Following substantial changes throughout the Australian education system, primary schools are no longer in the protected position of having a regulated flow of clients, a pre-determined curriculum and marginal levels of staff development. Recent moves have brought new or increased responsibilities for all schools in areas such as: *curriculum and policy development *staff development *monitoring and assessment *the use of new technologies *resource allocation This book seeks to review the impact of this change on Australian primary schools, on the people who are involved with them and the issues they face. Primary education is being re-structured throughout the world, and therefore these issues are of great interest and relevance to educators worldwide.

Improving education through policy learning is an important notion for countries in need of educational reform. However, identifying a successful set of practices and transferring them from one national setting to another is a complex exercise. Drawing from their extensive experience, the authors explore a single case study of policy transfer in India, demonstrating how and under what conditions educational reforms can be put into practice successfully and sustainably. Coverage includes: · Policy Learning · Inclusive Practices · School Autonomy and School Leadership · India and its system of education This book offers a unique, international perspective on educational reform and is a useful resource for teachers, policy makers and postgraduate level students.

Does an effective school really come about through the actions of teachers and school leaders, or does it also require an advantaged student intake? This question reflects a longstanding research debate about whether or not the social class mix of a school's student intake has much effect on individual achievement. Schools Making a Difference: Let's Be Realistic! presents new evidence which suggests that school mix is likely to be important because of the way many school processes are deeply influenced by student intake characteristics. Low socioeconomic schools face numerous intake-related constraints which make them highly resistant to improvement efforts. By suggesting that 'failing' schools are often overwhelmed rather than ineffective, this book provides a sympathetic reappraisal of the performance of teachers and school leaders in such schools. It also offers a critical response to the often unrealistic claims of the school effectiveness and school improvement movement and a fresh critique of market reforms in education.

Education in the Balance explores the significant choices and opportunities worldwide that are opening up to school leaders of the future for the development of schools and school systems. It argues that the judgments of individuals in leadership positions in a wide range of settings, including ministries of education, schools, private companies and NGOs may, cumulatively, have unintended implications for schools and school systems. In failing to give sufficient consideration to alternative approaches, opportunities to achieve greater or more widespread educational benefits may be missed. The future of school education depends on the quality of its leaders and on the readiness of leadership to act for the long term and with a sense of global responsibility. What knowledge, skills and attributes will new leaders of schools need, and how can they be developed? Raphael Wilkins maps out these issues, drawing on his first-hand experience as an international consultant in education leadership. This book supports the strategic leadership of schools and school systems, by mapping global issues and developments, helping leaders to reflect on their chosen pathways and options, and to identify their own professional development needs.

Here is a review of worldwide economic, political, cultural and educational changes since the beginning of the 1980s, examining new trends in educational governance. It describes the processes of globalization and shows how national education systems have responded. The book explains how world education models have emerged in international agencies and traces the ways these models are borrowed, imitated, imposed and adapted as different countries reform primary and secondary education.

Nick Adnett and Peter Davies develop an economic analysis of schooling markets, emphasizing both the strengths and weaknesses of orthodox analyses. They explain the economic and social contexts that have generated the widespread desire to reform state schooling and develop a systematic analysis of the key policy components examining both theory and