The current shortage of fully certified special education teachers is a problem that the nation is facing. The Commonwealth of Kentucky is one of the states that is seeing increased numbers of vacancies within special education. This article explores how liberal arts educator preparation programs (EPPs) offering dual certification in special…

The University of Kentucky provides an alternative certification program to prepare teacher candidates in moderate and severe disabilities. Observations occur every semester that candidates are in the 2-year program and must be conducted all across Kentucky, often many miles away from campus. University researchers placed cameras in the classrooms…

The Certification Data Exchange Project (CDEP) was launched in 2012 to provide a model for sharing industry-recognized credential attainment data. Increasingly, employers and education leaders are recognizing the value of industry credentials to verify the knowledge, skills and abilities that students bring to the workforce. As states take steps…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

One of the most important issues facing education policymakers is how to prepare students to be productive citizens in an increasingly competitive global economy. While state accountability systems suggest that the proportion of students meeting state benchmarks is rising, performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has…

Many alternative routes to certification in special education serving rural populations incorporate distance-learning technology. Participants in these programs may feel isolated because they do not regularly travel to campus to attend courses or meet with their instructors. This article describes a strategy in which regularly scheduled individual…

Community Coordinated Child Care of Louisville and Jefferson County, in cooperation with the Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources and the University of Kentucky, conducted a survey of all licensed child day care facilities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The study was intended to provide information for use in planning for child day care needs.…

An essential administrative responsibility accorded to state and district-level education leaders is the task of planning for staffing needs, including the recruitment of competent leaders to fill principal vacancies. Here, Winter et al develop empirical measures to allow state departments of education and school districts to assess their…

In 1984, the Kentucky General Assembly mandated a beginning teacher internship program that combined knowledge testing prior to a 1-year initial license for teaching and performance assessment prior to continuing licensure (determined by an internship committee with a teacher at the same school, a principal, and a teacher educator). An internship…

A 1980 survey of General Educational Development (GED) equivalency certificate recipients who completed the GED test in 1975 measured influence and impact of successful GED completion on the individual. The sample consisted of 101 former adult students whose records came from the Murray and Paducah, Kentucky, GED testing centers. The survey…

This collection of papers describes the process of creating a standards-based teacher education program through strong collaboration among arts and science, education, and P-12 faculty members and administrators. The Standards-based Teacher Education Project (STEP) was designed to help teacher education programs ensure that their graduates know…