Two landmark efforts to describe the condition of American Indian and Alaska Native education nationwide and to call for specific solutions took place in the early 1990s. These efforts were the Indian Nations At Risk Task Force and the White House Conference on Indian Education. This digest summarizes Task Force and Conference recommendations…

This digest illustrates the variety of basic and theoretical issues in evaluation with which aspiring evaluators should be conversant in order to claim that they know the knowledge base of their profession. Coverage of the issues includes: the four steps in the logic of evaluation; whether qualitative evaluations are valid; whether it matters if…

This Digest reviews the literature on the subject of teaching English and language arts to gifted and talented students. It discusses how to identify gifted students, outlines some key principles for developing effective programs in English and language arts for the gifted, and suggests possible methods of evaluating gifted students and programs.…

This digest focuses on the contributions counselors can make to help schools achieve educational excellence and enhance both the quantity and quality of student learning. (BH)

As a result of increasing pressure from external constituencies, community colleges have been called upon to demonstrate accountability through assessment activities and research on institutional effectiveness based on student outcomes. Since community colleges include transient student populations, students with a wide range of ability and…

Evaluations of compensatory education programs provided under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) indicate that the traditional provision of a less challenging curriculum, limited achievement goals, and emphasis on pull-out programs for compensatory instruction actually hamper the ability of low-achieving students…

Although evaluation plays many roles in schools--support for administrative decision-making, curriculum improvement, staff development, public relations, instruction, counseling, diagnosing problems for students and staff, planning--recent studies of school district evaluation practices indicate that little overall consistency exists in the form…

During the 1990s, there was heightened awareness among early childhood researchers of the need to examine efforts to provide programs and services responsive to the needs and preferences of families of young children from diverse cultural and linguistic groups. This Digest presents strategies supported by the research literature to enhance…