Improving teacher quality in early education is a major part of ensuring young children's school readiness and closing the achievement gap. This is the book decision-makers and administrators need to begin developing coordinated, effective teacher quality systems--ones that not only get teachers ready for the classroom, but also promote continuous…

The document--80% of which consists of appendixes--presents the final report of Project AID (Assistance for IEP Development), designed to assist schools in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in the initiation of the individualized education program (IEP) process for handicapped students. Intensive training programs were devised for personnel in each…

This report summarizes accomplishments of the ESCAPE (Eastern Stream Child Abuse Prevention and Education) Project over its final two years and identifies products developed under its auspices during this period. An introduction describes the project which was initiated in 1982 to establish and reduce the incidence of child maltreatment in the…

The Communities of Practice approach offers state agency personnel a lens for exploring the human aspects of problems. They can be used as a technical assistance approach for bringing together multiple stakeholders to address complex issues facing special education. The IDEA Partnership has pioneered the use of a website for its national…

This publication presents a lengthy study of the intermediate educational unit system in the state of Pennsylvania. Purpose of the study was to describe in a comprehensive manner the programmatic, operational, and fiscal aspects of intermediate units, to examine the significant interactions between intermediate units and other agencies…

Alternative education programs for disruptive and at-risk students in Pennsylvania were studied to determine the characteristics that make such programs successful. This report presents the results of the analysis and lists model programs and other operating programs in Pennsylvania. Suspension and expulsion are stopgap solutions that relieve the…

For young people who have dropped out of school, are out of work, or lack connections to family or other caring adults, there are often no easy answers. Their hopes for a better life are frequently no different than those harbored by their more advantaged peers, but their path to adulthood is rendered more difficult by tangled combinations of…

Family centers were used to coordinate the delivery of services in the Child and Family Reosurce Program (CFRP) in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, one of 11 demonstration sites in this Head Start-affiliated program. Cooperation between county service agencies was fostered by implementation of a task force whose members were executive directors of the…

Objectives of this assessment of Pennsylvania's vocational programs for the handicapped were to describe and evaluate the programs' impact and explore the local capability for offering vocational program services to the handicapped. Study methodology was guided by 23 evaluation questions representing five major study components: problems and…

The Job Placement Center project implements those job placement services outlined in the "School-Based Job Placement Model" (ED 077 959), developed in 1972 by the Pennsylvania Research Coordinating Unit for Vocational Education. The project's purpose was to assimilate and extend this model to meet the job placement needs of 46 suburban…

This report focuses on one method of human services integration--starting with a categorical funding and program base which is expanded to integrate complementary services and resources into a comprehensive service package. The four projects examined illustrate the following initial categorical bases: Community mental health services, primarily…

In 2000 and 2001, the Team Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board (Team PA WIB) and its partners worked jointly to address Pennsylvania's workforce needs and respond to the need of its customers through new initiatives, new partnerships, and new strategies. The Team PA WIB and its partners continued implementation of the state's vision to create…