Research shows that exposure to teachers of color has a positive impact on students of all races, and particularly on students of color. Despite these positive effects, only 4% of Pennsylvania's teachers are people of color. This percentage is not only one of the lowest in the nation, but it is also starkly disparate from Pennsylvania's own…

In various research areas, the availability of open datasets is considered as key for research and application purposes. These datasets are used as benchmarks to develop new algorithms and to compare them to other algorithms in given settings. Finding such available datasets for experimentation can be a challenging task in technology enhanced…

Over the past decade, school districts and states have made impressive advances in collecting and managing data used for accountability purposes. By the year 2011, all 50 states will have systems to track students from year to year. But in most states and districts, all the data generated by these systems flows only one way: up. This paper…

"Building Institutional Capacity for Data-Informed Decision Making" is the third installment of the Cutting Edge series, which aims to help colleges engage faculty, scale successful interventions, and create a strong culture of evidence through use of data to strengthen their institutional change and student success efforts. Though the…

Response to intervention (RTI) arose, in part, from the limited success of the pre-referral process, an approach advocated in the 1980s and 1990s, and accurately measuring the discrepancy between aptitude and achievement in young children. Reflecting these concerns, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in…

This article describes a design partnership that investigated how to integrate Google Earth, remotely sensed satellite and aerial imagery, with other instructional resources to investigate ground cover and land use in diverse middle school classrooms. Data analysis from the implementation study revealed that students acquired skills for…

The activities of four vocational education planning district (VEPD) centers in Pennsylvania (Temple University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, The University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania State University) are evaluated in this report. Following an introduction to the evaluation project, the report consists of five sections: a summary of…

This report (1) reviews the concept, development, and effectiveness of the Regional Library Resource Centers (RRC's) of Pennsylvania as a part of the state's organization for public library services; (2) recommends possible desirable changes in their number, scope of services, interlibrary relationships, and funding; and (3) drafts regulations for…

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…

This handbook is one in a series prepared for use at workshops designed to help teachers, administrators, and legislators understand and deal with the intricacies of school finance equalization plans in their states. Pennsylvania's education finance plan is discussed in this particular book. Chapter 1 discusses state support for education in…

In the summer of 1984, the Pennsylvania Department of Education conducted a survey of promotion policies and practices in Pennsylvania schools in response to a request for information from the State Board of Education. This document presents the major findings from the analysis of data from the 423 school districts that completed the survey. A…

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…

Selected information is displayed in the form of charts, tables, and graphs about: (1) the State Student Incentive Grant (SSIG) program and other state-level student financial assistance programs; (2) the primary state agency or organization responsible for administering these programs; and (3) the general state characteristics relating to student…

INCLUDED IN THIS REPORT ARE SEPARATE EVALUATIONS OF 19 PROJECTS AND FIVE SUBPROJECTS, A DESCRIPTION OF A PROGRAM TO MASS-TEST A CROSS SECTION OF PUPILS FROM TITLE I SCHOOLS, AND THE RESULTS OF AN ACROSS-PROJECT TITLE I SURVEY. SIX OF THE PROJECTS (READING PROGRAM, MODERN MATHEMATICS, SCHOOL-COMMUNITY COORDINATORS, ELEMENTARY ART, COUNSELOR AIDES)…