Gifted and talented education: The English policy highway at a crossroads?

Copyright © 2013 by Sage Publications. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.In 1999, the British government launched an education program for gifted and talented pupils as part of its Excellence in Cities initiative (EiC) that was initially designed to raise the educational achievement of very able pupils in state-maintained secondary schools in inner-city areas. Although some activities targeting gifted children had already been initiated by various voluntary organizations over several previous decades, this was the first time that the topic of improved provision for these pupils had been placed firmly within the national agenda. This article provides the background to the English gifted and talented policy “highway” and an overview of what was expected of schools. How practitioners responded to the policy, their beliefs and attitudes toward identifying gifted and talented pupils, and the opportunities and challenges that arose along the way to the current crossroads are explored. The need to empower teachers to feel more confident in classroom provisions for gifted and talented pupils is identified along with the potentially pivotal role of action research and “pupil voice” in the process of continued professional development and support

Justice at the crossroads in Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste needs a radical overhaul of its judicial system, and there may be an opening now to push forward with reform. Introduction Judicial reform in Timor-Leste is at a crossroads, and the path taken will determine whether one of the world’s youngest countries can develop an independent, accountable and competent judiciary. The choices it now faces were highlighted by the government’s sudden expulsion of international judges in October 2014 that some saw as political intervention and others as a necessary measure to deepen reforms that have been quietly taking place since at least 2013. Judicial reform is part of a larger process of transition from an older generation of leaders steeped in the experience of exile and resistance to a younger generation shaped more by the Indonesian occupation and the first decade of independence. The question now is whether both have the will to undertake the sweeping overhaul of the legal system needed. The detailed recommendations at the end of this report suggest a possible way forward. The judiciary’s problems are rooted in the violent upheaval that took place in 1999 in what was then the Indonesian province of East Timor, after a United Nations-supervised referendum produced an overwhelming vote to separate from Indonesia. The UN assumed temporary responsibility for the country’s administration, placing many of the most essential judicial functions in the hands of international judicial officers and advisors. Fifteen years later, the judiciary of independent Timor-Leste was still heavily dependent on Portuguese-speaking international personnel. Then, in October 2014, almost all of the internationals still employed as judges, prosecutors, public defenders and investigators were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. Trials in which international judges were participating were stopped. The country’s national judicial training facility for judges, prosecutors, and public defenders ceased to function. The fate of pending cases of serious crimes against humanity from 1999 was thrown into question. The mechanism for promoting judges, required for key positions in the judiciary including the eventual Supreme Court, ceased to exist. There were two major interpretations of the expulsions. The first view, widely heard at the time, was that they were politically motivated to increase the government’s control over judicial functions and the legal profession. The second view, gradually gaining ground, is that the systemic problems were so severe and the dependence on internationals of dubious competence so great that political intervention was a prerequisite of real reform. However one interprets the expulsions, there is a broad consensus across the government and political elite that major change is required and that the era of international dominance is over, leaving the Timorese to finally take full responsibility for their judicial institutions. The crucial question now is whether the current government’s planned reforms—in legal education, professional training and access to justice—will succeed in providing a judiciary that meets its citizens’ needs. The alternative will be “Timorisation” without meaningful reform. This report is based on three months of primary and secondary source research, including a field visit and court monitoring in Dili, Timor-Leste during February 2015 by the authors, David Cohen and Leigh-Ashley Lipscomb. The authors conducted 39 interviews with representatives of the justice sector, civil society organisations, service providers, government officials, the United Nations and the international donor community. The Court of Appeal and the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), an NGO, provided the majority of statistical data analysed in this report

Ukraine at a Crossroads

The Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 built great hopes for a better future for Ukraine. However, three years later those hopes have been replaced by disappointment, frustration and confusion. Although progress in the areas of political freedom, pluralism, civil rights and freedom in the media remains unquestionable the record of economic, institutional and legal reforms is much more problematic. The key macroeconomic indicators are not better than they were few years ago and the business climate has barely improved. The WTO accession process remains incomplete. The perspectives of Euro-Atlantic integration are continually subject to heated domestic political controversies. The political situation remains unstable, mostly due to the hasty constitutional changes that were adopted during the Orange Revolution. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of the Ukrainian economy at the end of 2007 and reflect upon what kind of reform program the Ukrainian government should consider, regardless of its political color. The reforms suggested in this paper involve a broad agenda of macroeconomic, social, structural and institutional measures. This agenda goes beyond the purely economic sphere and also addresses issues of legal, administrative and political reforms. The politics and political economy of any future reform effort will not be easy because the country is deeply divided in political, cultural, regional and ethnic terms. In such an environment, crucial reforms and strategic decisions will require a wider cross-party political consensus.Ukraine, Orange Revolution, CIS, transition, European Naighborhood Policy, Euro-Atlantic integration

Moving English forward : action to raise standards in English

"This report sets out to answer the question: how can attainment in English be raised in order to move English forward in schools? It is recommended to all who teach the subject, those who lead the subject, and headteachers of primary and secondary schools. The findings are based principally on evidence from inspections of English between April 2008 and March 2011 in 268 maintained schools in England. Part A highlights the main strengths and weaknesses in English and presents the evidence from the survey inspection visits. Part B draws on this inspection evidence to analyse 10 areas of weakness and recommend appropriate action to improve practice in each area" - front cover

Crossroads for Federal Enforcement of the Clean Air Act

A major goal of the Clean Air Act 1 (hereinafter CAA or Act ) is to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation\u27s air resources. 2 The Act uses a two tiered approach to accomplish this goal. First, the Act focuses on the national attainment and maintenance of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for criteria pollutants, 3 and second, the Act also sets specific standards for known hazardous air pollutants (HAPS) 4 . The Act emphasizes throughout its text that air quality problems are national in scope and often cross state boundaries. 5 Congress clearly intended that enforcement of programs to improve air quality be a cooperative effort of state and federal governments. 6 Courts also have recognized for decades the necessity of a federal enforcement presence in the effort to improve air quality nationally. As the D.C. Circuit Court noted, EPA ... is the ultimate supervisor, responsible for approving state plans and for stepping in, should a state fail to develop or to enforce an acceptable plan... EPA is to ensure national uniformity where needed, for example, to ensure that states do not compete unfairly for industry by offering air quality standards that are too lax to bring about needed improvement in the air we breathe. 7 An important component of many federal environmental laws is federal enforceability. The federal enforceability 8 of state air quality limitations or controls on sources requires that the Administrator of the EPA, not solely state or local authorities, enforce emission ..

Obstructing justice : the federal government’s disuse of deferred prosecution agreements for non-corporate defendants

Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) are voluntary agreements between prosecutors and defendants in which the government agrees to suspend prosecution for a specified period of time while the defendant is monitored for compliance with certain conditions. Though Congress modeled the legislation authorizing federal use of DPAs on pretrial diversion programs targeting nonviolent, nonrecidivist drug offenders, the Department of Justice today uses DPAs almost exclusively for resolving corporate criminal liability. Given the federal government’s emphasis on remedying mass incarceration and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions, expanding the federal use of DPAs to the class of offenders and offenses for which such agreements were intended represents an unexplored opportunity for achieving meaningful criminal justice reform.LawPublic Affair

Culture and Commerce

Illustrates the possibilities and challenges of making partnerships between economic development agencies and traditional arts organizations work. Examines the outcome of eight collaborations that were formed as part of a partnership funding initiative

Crossroads Rhode Island: Proposed Social Enterprise Business Plan

Crossroads Rhode Island provides their clients with a continuum of care that includes basic emergency needs, shelter, housing, case management and vocational services for individuals and families. In order to provide these services they rely on the generosity of their donors and supporters who have helped Crossroads to become the largest homeless services organization in Rhode Island. It is important to Crossroads that they stick to their core values of safety, respect, and effectiveness when helping the homeless or at-risk individuals and families secure stable homes

Federalism at the Crossorads: Old Meanings, New Significance

Federalism has remained a contested concept. The constitutional certainties of the modern federal state are under attack from confederal practices of negotiated agreement. Such practices have their traditional roots in the political theories of Althusius and Montesquieu. The central argument of this article is that the American Federalists broke with that older tradition and deliberately misinterpreted Montesquieu along the way. Consequently, the predominant reading of federalism emphasizes federal supremacy over the idea of a social compact among equal partners, territorial representation dominates over the recognition of social community, and the allocation of divided powers is guided by national prerogatives rather than regionally differentiated policy needs. Recent trends towards a more collaborative form of federalism indicate that the old model of constitutional federalism may be replaced by new practices of treaty federalism