Within the context of accountability for US schools, standardized achievement tests are being used for increasingly 'high stakes' decisions for all students including those for whom English is a second language, even when their English language skills are not adequate for the task. This article discusses approaches to the standardized assessment of content knowledge for English language learners (ELLs), 1 including testing in the student's first language, the use of test accommodations, and measuring growth in English as an alternative for accountability until student control of English is sufficient to assure validity of test scores. Limitations of current research on the use of standardized content assessments with ELLs are presented and alternative approaches suggested.

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In 1984, Lett undertook a review of the state of Australian music education research for the period to 1978. The present article considers the developments that have taken place since that time through a review of scholarly opinion to identify the principal themes and issues that have emerged since Lett's (1984) article. There is also an analysis of approximately 350 research theses completed or in progress to 1997. Conclusions are drawn regarding the level of the higher degree work being undertaken (honours, masters and doctoral degrees), the demographic spread across the various states, the distribution of music education research across the major educational research paradigms, and the focus of research in relation to both content / subject and educational level. The article also identifies general trends and issues in relation to these aspects as well as making recommendations for promoting music education research in the future.

Music education research in Australia has grown almost exponentially over the past 25 years. Particularly in the area of doctoral research studies, there has been a substantial increase in the number of theses completed from two in 1977 to 72 in 2002. In addition, there have been increases in professional research undertaken by university academics, in the number of nationally competitive research grants being awarded by the Australian Research Council and other research funding agencies, and in commissioned research studies. This article reviews the various types of music education research being undertaken in Australia and also discusses the dissemination of the findings of research through articles in national and international scholarly journals and papers presented at local and international conferences. One of the conclusions drawn is that Australian music education has ‘come of age’ in terms of both the quantity and the quality of its national research profile.

Instrumental and vocal music students in regional and remote areas of Australia are often significantly disadvantaged in their development by the lack of local teachers who specialize in the instrument being learned. The current rollout of National Broadband Network (NBN) across Australia offers the potential for overcoming this geographical disadvantage by providing specialist online tuition through videoconferencing. This article reports on an investigation of technical and pedagogical issues associated with synchronous online instrumental tuition. The outcomes from laboratory- and field-based trials included identification of optimal hardware and software delivery systems and pedagogical considerations for optimizing online instrumental learning.