OECD Reports on Making Reforms Happen 2015 and The State of Higher Education 2014 were very informative and quite interesting readings. The State of Higher Education 2014 report focused on how the changes in the Higher Education over the last several decades forcing the Higher Education Institutions adjust, learn, and evolve offering some ideas for different models to address the cost, value, assessment, funding, and research in the Higher Ed Institutions. One of the major examples provided is the success of research and funding through Research Excellence Initiatives (REIs). Although I do agree that this seems to be a prosperous way for many institutions, other smaller colleges and universities might not have same access to this funding, research opportunities, and recognition. As a result, there is a need more ideas/approaches to address all other aspects of higher education that were not given a consideration by REIs.

OECD report on Making Reforms Happen 2015 focused on policy reforms and how they are being implemented around the world. What struck me the most in the report are the statistics of how much of the education money is being allocated toward which purpose. Only 9% goes toward governance, 11% toward funding, and 12% toward evaluation and assessment, which means there is very little attention being paid to what the education system is in need of, who will fund it, and once the policies are implemented, does it really work, or we just continue to fund what is really not working. In addition, the report states, “The analysis shows that once new policies are adopted, there is little follow-up. Only 10% of the policies considered in this dataset have been evaluated for their impact” (P.2). I find it very disturbing that so little attention is being paid to performance and the value on new policies being implemented, it seems as a recipe for disaster and waste of valuable funding that is being thrown out on reforms that simply don’t work, but no one cares to notice to re-allocate the funds to other policies that do perform and make a difference.

In order for the education systems around the world to be successful and efficient, it is important to have accountability on different levels (from individual to national). Accountability seems to be always circling back when it comes to creating these policies and reforms, working on implementation, as well as when measuring quality and evaluation. In her report on Standards, Assessments and Education Policy, Linda Darling-Hammond references accountability as follow, “True accountability occurs only when policymakers and educators can act on the information provided by an accountability system in ways that create better opportunities and outcomes for both individual students and groups of students” (Page 7). This shows that having a strong accountability system in place on any level (either it is individual, school, regional, or national) is extremely important to measure short and long term results of any policy and/or reform.