Education Policy Analysis Archives

Continuing the conversation: “Life is Good”—David Berliner's legacy

2026-03-12T17:00:00+00:00

Throughout his journey from applied researcher to world-renowned scholar, David Berliner was committed to education research that matters—not just within academic circles, but within classrooms and communities. As a public intellectual and a fierce advocate for public education, David expertly and courageously engaged in education debates, bridged research with practice, debunked myths and exposed misinformation, and in the process, reshaped how we understand education. This special issue of EPAA/AAPE celebrates David Berliner's legacy as a scholar, and more importantly, as someone who was deeply respected and cherished. What follows are personal essays by family members, friends, and colleagues that engage with David's ideas and inspire us to continue the conversations that David valued and fought for.

A complete list of his EPAA/AAPE articles may be found at: David C. Berliner Collection | Education Policy Analysis Archives

David Berliner's article, Educational Reform in an Era of Disinformation (1993) was the second article published in EPAA/AAPE. It launched David’s career as a scholar of educational policyand formed the basis of his award-winning book with Bruce Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis.

From Salamanca to the present: Configurations and tensions in initial teacher education for inclusion

2026-02-18T15:09:33+00:00

This introductory article examines advances, setbacks, and challenges in the programs of initial teacher education for inclusion, 30 years after the Salamanca Declaration. Drawing on recent international reports, policy documents, and empirical research, the article provides an updated overview of challenges facing teacher education, including persistent inequalities and the limited diversification of the teaching workforce. It situates inclusive education as a contested field shaped by policy developments and uneven institutional responses across contexts. The article reviews key conceptual shifts in the understanding of inclusion, moving beyond disability-centered approaches toward broader perspectives, and analyzes how these shifts have reshaped expectations of the teaching profession. It also identifies ongoing limitations within initial teacher education, such as deficit-based approaches and curricular fragmentation. Finally, the article introduces and contextualizes the contributions that compose the special issue, outlining how each article addresses these challenges from different contexts and analytical approaches.

Advancing equitable access to quality education globally: Innovations in curriculum, teacher education, and professional development

2026-01-13T08:05:05+00:00

This article introduces the special issue “Advancing Equitable Access to Quality Education Globally: Innovations in Curriculum, Teacher Education, and Professional Development,” featuring articles that report on a multi-country project examining the challenges and opportunities of globalization for three types of reforms that have seen significant innovation in the past decade. These reforms encompass the school curriculum, teachers' education, and teachers' professional development (collectively referred to in this article as SCTEPD). The reporting countries were undergoing rapid transformation that incorporated the three reforms when we began our work, and included: India, New Zealand, Peru, Scotland, and Wales. This introductory article offers a retrospective and prospective discussion of global reforms in three key areas of SCTEPD, providing context for the articles that follow. In this introductory article, we use Cohen and Mehta's (2017) theoretical framework to analyze these reforms, aiming to understand the conditions that lead to successful, lasting reforms and the extent to which these reforms have increased equity and quality in education for all learners.

Introduction to the special issue: Science of Reading policies

2025-11-07T15:53:04+00:00

Over the past decade, a wave of literacy policy reforms—often framed under the banners of the “Science of Reading” (SoR) and the “right to read”—has spread internationally from England to the United States, Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa/New Zealand. These reforms, while consistent in their emphasis on structured approaches to early reading instruction, have sparked significant controversy and debate. This special issue examines the global phenomenon of literacy-focused education reform, exploring how reading is constructed as a policy problem and mobilized through political agendas, media narratives, and privatized intermediary organizations. Contributors analyze the complex interplay between policy implementation and educational infrastructure, revealing how reforms influence not only pedagogy but also curriculum, assessment, professional development, and leadership. Drawing on diverse international contexts and methodological approaches, the papers interrogate the consequences of centralized control, rapid implementation, and market-driven solutions. Findings suggest that despite widespread adoption, SoR-related policies have not consistently led to improved outcomes or equity and often exacerbate systemic issues such as racial and linguistic oppression. The issue highlights the dangers of politically driven pedagogy and the erosion of educational expertise, raising critical questions about accountability, democratic governance, and the future of literacy education.

Governmentality and psychopolitics in education: The case of regulating cell phone use in Brazilian schools

2025-12-08T11:32:12+00:00

This article examines education policy on cellphones in schools through a qualitative documentary analysis of Law 15.100/2025, Decree 12.385/2025, CNE/CEB Resolution No. 2/2025, and the MEC RED collection. Drawing on governmentality, psychopolitics, and neoliberal rationality, and employing framing, critical discourse analysis (CDA), and WPR, or What’s the Problem Represented to be?, we analyze how the policy constructs the problem of cellphone use, allocates responsibility, and configures techniques of conduct. The findings indicate a shift of risk from digital platforms to students’, families’, and schools’ behavior, strengthening local accountability and affective self‑regulation. The literature suggests only partial coherence between the diagnosis (attention economy, youth mental distress) and instruments (ban, awareness, and pastoral care), with limited corporate co‑responsibility and a lack of safety by design. Evidences suggest that the curricularization of “digital education” consolidates the pedagogization of the norm. We conclude that adequate protection requires combining school‑level restrictions with structural regulation (algorithmic transparency, protective defaults, and privacy/safety by design), realigning responsibility toward platforms and the state.

Local educational autonomy and student achievement: Constructing a state-level school district autonomy index in the United States

2025-11-17T10:25:25+00:00

Drawing on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Education Statistics, and state property tax indicators, the analysis employs exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical regression to assess the relationship between district autonomy and student achievement. Results suggest that fiscal flexibility and administrative discretion are positively associated with higher mathematics and SAT performance, whereas punitive oversight mechanisms correlate negatively with performance. These findings underscore that autonomy enhances educational effectiveness only when accompanied by institutional capacity and accountability. By providing a replicable framework for measuring school district autonomy, this study advances empirical understanding of decentralization in K–12 education and offers policymakers a measurement framework for balancing local discretion with equitable governance.

Introduction to the special issue: Education privatisation and commercialisation in the context and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

2025-09-18T12:11:01+00:00

While different forms of privatisation and commercialisation of education have existed since at least the 1990s, the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2022 created opportunities for the integration of private and commercial interests in public education to be turbo-charged. In this introduction to the special issue, we place its articles featuring country case studies from Italy, Brazil, and the United Kingdom in context, providing some historical and conceptual background to the forms, impacts and pathways of privatisation and commercialisation of education. We argue, based on our reading of the three articles in this collection and of the literature more broadly, that the education crisis brought about by the global pandemic swiftly opened the doors to new private actors and new forms of public-private partnerships. Due to the enduring nature of many of the relationships established over the course of the crisis, we observe the longer-term impacts in the form of expanded and intensified reach of the global education industry and more entrenched forms of privatisation and commercialisation of education in many contexts worldwide.

Reimagining the practicum: Toward an inclusive, critical, and socially just initial teacher education

2025-07-16T03:16:19+00:00

The practicum is a privileged space for professional learning, although its transformative potential is limited by technocratic approaches and fragmented curricula that hinder the connection between experiences and critical perspectives on inclusion and social justice. This qualitative study analyzes the experience of 14 Primary Education pre-service teachers at a Spanish university who participate in reflective practicum seminars, in order to understand how these structures contribute to the development of an inclusive and critical professional identity. Drawing on field notes, recordings, and four semi-structured interviews, we conducted a reflexive thematic and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four experiential cores were identified: (a) the divide between academic knowledge and school reality; (b) the emergence of guided ethical reflection and inclusive agency; (c) the experience of uncertainty and collaborative learning around critical incidents; and (d) an active defense of inclusion in the face of training gaps observed across practicum groups. The results show that the seminars provide a space to process the “reality shock” and translate inclusive values into situated decisions, suggesting that reshaping the practicum through a social-justice-oriented lens is essential for preparing teachers as agents of change.

Literacy policy design: An analysis of coordination instruments in six northeastern states

2025-09-11T19:18:28+00:00

The recent emergence of age-appropriate literacy programs in Brazilian states highlights the importance of this topic on state executives' agendas, as well as the diffusion of the PAIC model from Ceará, although few studies have focused on analyzing these initiatives. This article aims to map these programs and systematize their design and instruments used. The study adopted a qualitative methodological approach, based on literature analysis and documentary research conducted on state education department websites, including laws, ordinances, decrees, and news related to six states in northeastern Brazil: Alagoas, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, and Sergipe. In summary, the research demonstrates that these programs share a similar, systemic design that includes normative, financial, technical-pedagogical support, logistical and material support, enforcement and qualification, and agreement-based instruments, although there are variations in the configuration of each instrument.

Erased from the permanent record: Data collection practices and non-binary student experiences in school

2025-09-07T15:35:12+00:00

State education data systems often undercount non-binary students, constraining schools’ ability to support them. This study examines the scope and implications of non-binary erasure in school data collection. Drawing on survey responses from nearly 13,000 students across seven Massachusetts districts, we find that current practices substantially undercount non-binary students, who also report less positive experiences of school culture, including student–teacher relationships, belonging, and emotional safety. Although inclusive data could guide efforts to create more supportive environments, districts face growing political resistance from parent organizations aligned with the White Christian Nationalist movement. These groups frame inclusivity as a threat to parental rights. We argue that state-level policies mandating inclusive gender data practices are needed to affirm the presence of non-binary students, protect districts from politicized backlash, and enable leaders to prioritize equity in school improvement.