Minnesotans value education. Education is the largest financial investment in the state budget, and those investments place Minnesota students among the top performers in the nation. Still, substantial gaps in opportunity and performance persist. The three purposes of the needs assessment were to: (1) Describe infrastructure, capacity, and costs…

What causes students to leave school? According to Azzam (2007), over 47% of students in the United States who drop out of school reported they did so because school was boring and irrelevant to their life situation. What can schools and teachers do to encourage students to stay in school? One possible solution may be to look at experiential…

In a time of evolving Algebraic standards and expectations for Minnesota teachers and students, the establishment of quality professional development and technical assistance can help educators move more confidently toward greater mathematics understanding and, subsequently, successful teaching and learning. To this end, the Minnesota Department…

The U.S. Department of Education recently held a competition for grants to support states in their efforts to build longitudinal data systems to track and analyze student and school performance. The Value-Added Research Center (VARC) at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed a Tri-State Partnership…

The St. Paul Open School, funded in part under Title III of the 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act, is a non-graded kindergarten through twelfth grade school where students progress at their own rate of speed in each area of learning. It is child-centered rather than subject-centered, with the emphasis on learning rather than teaching; on…

The purpose of this report is to provide information about the effectiveness of the Southeast Alternatives program. Major findings indicate that decentralization of the governance in the program has been accomplished through the establishment of representative advisory/governance groups; these groups have brought more, and different, people closer…

The Pine County (Minnesota) Special Education System has adapted a database for use in decision making regarding programs for learning disabled and behavior problem students. The system is used for decisions in seven areas: identification, initial assessment, eligibility determination, individualized education program (IEP) selection, IEP…

This report discusses a 3-year project to examine and develop agency structures to implement a more person-centered design in Minnesota agencies assisting individuals with disabilities. Five of the eight participating agencies offered residential services; two offered vocational, employment, and day programs; and one offered both residential and…

Papers concerning higher education planning and management in the 1980s that were contributed to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems competition for the Planning and Financing Program are presented. The papers, submitted by administrators, researchers, and a student, are as follows: "Faculty Reallocation: Plattsburgh…