Automotive industry ecologization: advantages and challenges of alternative fuel vehicles implication

The article is dedicated to the problem of identifying strategic groups in the business education market. The authors conducted a systematic review of publications on the topic. The object of the research is the developed markets of business education in the USA and Western Europe, the subject of the research is the groups of relatively homogeneous educational institutions that demonstrate similar strategic behaviour (strategic groups). For researchers, dividing market participants into strategic groups is the basis for identifying efficiency factors in the respective groups, and for heads of educational institutions and market regulators, it is a prerequisite for constructing meaningfully interpreted rankings and business school ratings. The purpose of the work is to identify trends in changes of the business-schools grouping approaches and the factors underlying such groupings. The authors revealed a shift of researchers' the emphasis from the characteristics of educational programs offered by schools to the positioning of schools in a wide social and educational environment. Although the strategic analysis level is growing, the discussion topic remains fragmented and covers only a part of the business education markets.

The concept of “smart village” and rural territories of Russia

The article is dedicated to the problem of identifying strategic groups in the business education market. The authors conducted a systematic review of publications on the topic. The object of the research is the developed markets of business education in the USA and Western Europe, the subject of the research is the groups of relatively homogeneous educational institutions that demonstrate similar strategic behaviour (strategic groups). For researchers, dividing market participants into strategic groups is the basis for identifying efficiency factors in the respective groups, and for heads of educational institutions and market regulators, it is a prerequisite for constructing meaningfully interpreted rankings and business school ratings. The purpose of the work is to identify trends in changes of the business-schools grouping approaches and the factors underlying such groupings. The authors revealed a shift of researchers' the emphasis from the characteristics of educational programs offered by schools to the positioning of schools in a wide social and educational environment. Although the strategic analysis level is growing, the discussion topic remains fragmented and covers only a part of the business education markets.

Adding “Student Voice” to the Mix: Perception Surveys and State Accountability Systems

For the past two decades, student perception surveys have become standard tools in data collection efforts. At the state level, however, “student voice” is still used sparingly. In this study, we examine the ways in which including student survey results might alter state accountability determinations. Reconstructing the accountability system in Massachusetts, we draw on a unique set of student survey data, which we add to the state’s formula at a maximally feasible dosage in order to determine new school ratings. As we find, student survey data shift school accountability ratings in small but meaningful ways and appear to enhance functional validity. Student survey results introduce information about school quality that is not captured by typical accountability metrics, correlate moderately with test score growth, and are not predicted by student demographic variables.

Parents’ Online School Reviews Reflect Several Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in K–12 Education

Parents often select schools by relying on subjective assessments of quality made by other parents, which are increasingly becoming available through written reviews on school ratings websites. To identify relationships between review content and school quality, we apply recent advances in natural language processing to nearly half a million parent reviews posted for more than 50,000 publicly funded U.S. K–12 schools on a popular ratings website. We find: (1) schools in urban areas and those serving affluent families are more likely to receive reviews, (2) review language correlates with standardized test scores—which generally track race and family income—but not school effectiveness, measured by how much students improve in their test scores over time, and (3) the linguistics of reviews reveal several racial and income-based disparities in K–12 education. These findings suggest that parents who reference school reviews may be accessing, and making decisions based on, biased perspectives that reinforce achievement gaps.

Improving Public Sector Management at Scale? Experimental Evidence on School Governance in India

We present results from a large-scale experimental evaluation of an ambitious attempt to improve management quality in Indian schools (implemented in 1,774 randomly-selected schools). The intervention featured several global “best practices” including comprehensive assessments, detailed school ratings, and customized school improvement plans. It did not, however, change accountability or incentives. We find that the assessments were near-universally completed, and that the ratings were informative, but the intervention had no impact on either school functioning or student outcomes. Yet, the program was perceived to be successful and scaled up to cover over 600,000 schools nationally. We find using a matched-pair design that the scaled-up program continued to be ineffective at improving student learning in the state we study. We also conduct detailed qualitative interviews with frontline officials and find that the main impact of the program on the ground was to increase required reporting and paperwork. Our results illustrate how ostensibly well-designed programs, that appear effective based on administrative measures of compliance, may be ineffective in practice.

Learning in the Fast Lane

The Advanced Placement (AP) program stands as the foremost source of college-level academics for millions of high school students in the United States and beyond. More than 22,000 schools now participate in it, across nearly forty subjects, from Latin and art to calculus and computer science. Yet remarkably little has been known about how this nongovernmental program became one of the greatest success stories in K–12 education—until now. This book offers an account of one of the most important educational initiatives of our time. The book traces the story of AP from its mid-twentieth-century origins as a niche benefit for privileged students to its emergence as a springboard to college for high schoolers nationwide, including hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged youth. Today, AP not only opens new intellectual horizons for smart teenagers, but also strengthens school ratings, attracts topflight teachers, and draws support from philanthropists, reformers, and policymakers. At the same time, it faces numerous challenges, including rival programs, curriculum wars, charges of elitism, the misgivings of influential universities, and the difficulty of infusing rigor into schools that lack it. In today's polarized climate, can AP maintain its lofty standards and surmount the problems that have sunk so many other bold education ventures?

The Landscape of School Rating Systems

The rise of the accountability movement in education has resulted in the proliferation of school report cards, school ratings and rankings, and other kinds of performance reporting for public consumption and policy use. To understand the strengths and limitations of school rating systems and the role they play in shaping public perceptions and school improvement practices, this paper situates rating systems within the broader field of comparative organizational assessments and neo-institutional theory; describes school rankings and rating systems in use by states and consumer-oriented enterprises; and details four aspects of school ratings (measurement, transformation, integration, and presentation) that affect their use and interpretation.