Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education are a global phenomenon of education reform that is increasingly being implemented in several countries, including Pakistan. These are being framed as effective policy tools to increase equitable access to education. There are different manifestations and designs of PPPs in different regions, based…

This synthesis report provides a historical look back over the past 15 years of alternate assessment, from the early 1990s through the mid 2000s, as reported by state directors of special education on the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) state surveys, and augmented by other research and policy reports published by NCEO and related…

The majority of empirical studies on performance appraisal (PA) systems focus on the search for the perfect form in which subjective traits are replaced by objective and job-relevant, measurable behaviors. Organizations using a PA system to evaluate their employees struggle with issues of implementation, adaptation, and linkage with other human…

Ensuring appropriate educational opportunities for students with disabilities is one of the greatest challenges that public schools face. Research suggests that few school leaders are prepared to provide effective special education leadership (Monteith, 2000; Walther-Thomas, DiPaola, & Butler, 2002). If school reform goals are to be realized,…

This paper reacts to testimony on early childhood special education research before the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education (EC 632 080). Noting the Commission's emphasis on accountability and results, it stresses the importance of being clear about desired outcomes, the need for sensitive and accurate ways of measuring…

Four critical time periods offer a sense of where the Effective Schools Movement has been, and where it appears to be headed. The period of 1966 to 1976 marked the beginning of descriptive studies of individual effective schools. During the period of 1976 to 1980 a new coalition was formed between many of the Effective Schools researchers and…

Eight common objections to performance funding of public colleges are presented and answered. The arguments focus on the complexity of higher education's goals, diversity of institution type, subjectivity of educational quality, relative power of the allocation amounts linked to performance measures, politics of resource allocation, cost of…

West Virginia's school improvement plan, emphasizing learning outcomes, mandates excellent education for all students. Following an executive summary, this paper discusses, first, the conflict between excellence and equity in educational reform, and West Virginia's intent to resolve that conflict; second, the legal foundations of the master plan,…

This Ministry of Education report describes the effectiveness of the British Columbian school system in educating learners. A picture of the school system as seen in the performance of students and schools in 1990-1991 is presented. The report focuses on results that are representative of the province-wide performance of students and schools and…

On account of concern about declining achievement levels of high school graduates and proposed state legislation increasing graduation requirements to address this concern, this report analyzes current and proposed high school graduation requirements in Illinois, based on data compiled from local school documents, and compares the data to…

The introductory section of this guide highlights the progress being made with educational technology and investments in technology by business/industry, innovations by a high school in Greenbrier (Arkansas), actions educators will need to take and challenges that will need to be addressed if technology is to be used successfully in education, and…

This paper traces the evolution of curriculum reform in Mississippi from a state level, norm-referenced accountability system to a performance-based, centralized accreditation system that integrates instructional management requirements into improvement standards. Accountability legislation has primarily been concerned with quality of student…