In the winter of 2007, a small group of faculty and administrators at East Carolina University (ECU) began discussions with personnel at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Virginia, regarding the education and continuing professional development of U.S. Army civilian interns and careerists (two types of…

Through the "Strengthening Statewide College/Career Readiness Initiative" (SSCRI), Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) has collaborated with states on state policy goals and actions needed to improve high school students' academic readiness for postsecondary study and reduce the need for remedial work. SREB created and implemented…

Peter Senge's (1990) theory of organizational change includes teams that perceive the whole of the organization; grow professionally; navigate short- and long-term organizational experiences through exposed mental models; share a vision; and hear each voice in an ongoing communal learning process. The Margaret Sue Copenhaver Institute for Teaching…

High-quality preschool programs are essential to improving children's outcomes in reading achievement and leveling language and literacy disparities among students from diverse backgrounds. Grounded in state-of-the-art research evidence, this practice-oriented book demonstrates how preschool professionals can create, evaluate, and sustain…

Multiyear study of a small school district in Virginia finds that portfolios enhance the accountability and professional development purposes of teacher evaluation. While finding portfolios to be fair and accurate measures of teacher performance, teachers and administrators expressed concern about the time required to develop them. (Contains 3…

This report presents a conceptual and structural framework for adult education staff development in Virginia. It recommends to Virginia adult educators and policymakers a set of structures to support staff development activities and then offers a philosophy to guide activities within those structures. The report first traces 2 years of a staff…

Virginia has developed a state training program for student financial aid administrators. It is coordinated with two previously separate programs, is cost efficient, and has resolved the issues of who should train, what materials should be included, when training should be conducted, and where training should occur. (JMD)

The project "Together We Can" is described in this final report as a program to provide training and technical assistance to improve the quality of life for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with deaf-blindness in Virginia. The plan for the project included services based on recommended effective practices in the areas of early…

In the 1990s, the nation's educational focus turned to troubled schools in the nation's poorest cities. Under the leadership of Luther Williams, then Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Urban Systemic Initiative was created to improve the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Recognizing that high-needs…

Action research focused on developing approaches local programs can use to document outcomes of student participation in adult basic education (ABE) programs. Teams of teachers and administrators from three ABE programs examined current documentation practices, were introduced to approaches to documentaion, and developed documentation processes…

The mission of the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) was to build a long-term capacity that would improve the educational structures of the rural communities it served. The major strategy ARSI used to create improvement communities across Appalachia was to identify, embrace and educate individual teachers, who became ARSI Teacher…

This document is intended as a template for individuals initiating and developing adult education distance learning programs. The introduction discusses the following issues: benefits of distance learning; flexibility; confidentiality; retention; and the best students to target. The template and supplementary materials are organized in five…