AFT: Teacher Accountability

OECD report shows need to move away from test fixation—away from our obsession with a punitive accountability approach that uses high-stakes standardized tests as its centerpiece and towards a more supportive accountability approach that continuously improves teacher performance and student learning.

http://www.aft.org/about/world/trends/teacheraccountability.cfm 

QS UNIVERSITY RANKINGS: ASIA 2013

Top Asian Universities:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2013?utm_source=social&utm_medium=infographic

Top Malaysian Universities:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2013?ugrad_course=&pgrad_course=&loc=Malaysia&field_ranking_scores_1024011=0.3&field_ranking_scores_1024016=0.1&field_ranking_scores_1024021=0.2&field_ranking_scores_1024026=0.15&field_ranking_scores_1024031=0.03&field_ranking_scores_1024036=0.02&field_ranking_scores_1024041=0.15&field_ranking_scores_1024046=0.03&field_ranking_scores_1024051=0.02&custom_ranking=&save_my_rankings_data_sort=2%2Casc%2C0&save_my_rankings_data_limit=50&save_my_rankings_data_search=&save_my_rankings_data_start=0

Inside Higher Education: Scrutiny of QS Rankings

Many educators question the value of rankings and argue that they can measure only a narrow slice of what quality higher education is about. QS’s methodology seems to be particularly controversial, however, due in large part to its greater reliance on reputational surveys than other rankers. Combined with a survey of employers, which counts for 10 percent of the overall ranking, reputational indicators account for half of a university’s QS ranking. By comparison, a university's teaching and research reputation, as gauged by an invitation-only survey of academics, accounts for a third of the Times Higher Education ranking; the ARWU doesn't use reputational surveys at all, relying instead on objective metrics related to citations and publications and the numbers of alumni and faculty winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals. Reputational data are "cheap and easy to collect, especially if one is not worrying too much about how respondents are selected ...........

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/methodology-qs-rankings-comes-under-scrutiny#ixzz2VvIN0cQm
Inside Higher Ed, 29 May 2013