A major focus of the booming education technology sector is on products that aim to help teachers improve classroom practice. For their part, districts must figure out which of these resources will be most useful to schools. In New York City, the Department of Education developed its own Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), which…

Concerns about the equitable distribution of school funding within and across school districts have led to new federal data collections on school-level expenditures. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) required states to collect and report, for the first time, school-level data on both personnel and non-personnel expenditures…

The federal government, states, school districts, and private foundations are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in educational data management systems. The hope for these investments is that providing better information to teachers and administrators, particularly student performance data, will support school-wide planning, inform…

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on behalf of the United States Department of Education in order to collect extensive data on American public and private elementary and secondary schools. SASS provides data on the characteristics and qualifications of teachers and…

This book describes a structure for understanding and managing the process and options for gathering and analyzing data on needs. The three-phase model that forms the basis for the structure grew from both theory and practical experience in many settings. The focus is on assessing the needs of organizations rather than individuals. It is stressed…

This report presents 228 tables detailing findings concerning management practices of marketing programs at 68 colleges and universities. Highlights of this report include: a mean of 5 employees regularly visit high school guidance counselors; only 5 percent of the colleges sponsor campus visits for select applicants; 24 percent of the colleges…

This report presents the results of an 18-month research project that studied the effectiveness of youth work with vulnerable young people. The research, representing six distinct geographical areas of Scotland characterized by disadvantage, focused on young people aged 13 to 16. In each neighborhood, the project examined the experiences of young…

This report discusses the outcomes of a project that investigated the computer, information, and learning and adaptive technology needs and concerns of Canadian postsecondary students with disabilities. A series of four bilingual focus groups involving 31 individuals was held. Focus groups included postsecondary students with various disabilities;…

The purpose of this project was to determine workforce needs in the new information technology/knowledge-based world in order to design a coherent minor program in information technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for the non-technically oriented college student. The process consisted of three phases: site visits to five…

This report examines the contrasting views of parents and students about what goes on in and around the school building. Two focus groups and eight in-depth interviews were conducted with children in the New York City area in addition to interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents of children in public schools and classroom…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the only accurate and credible indicator of educational performance capable of informing about national trends and state differences in student achievement, serves many different constituencies whose opinions must figure heavily in determining the future directions of the NAEP. To identify,…

In 2007, the Texas Legislature (80th Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2007) authorized the creation of the Texas Rural Technology (R-Tech) Pilot program, which provides $8 million in funding to support rural districts in implementing technology-based supplemental education programs. In order to be eligible for funding, districts must have…

Differences in the earnings of male and female graduates of technical and further education (TAFE) programs in Australia were examined in a study that focused primarily on graduates working full-time. Data were collected from the 1997 Graduate Destination Survey and from a series of focus groups and interviews with women TAFE graduates working in…

How do ABE/ESOL (Adult Basic Education/English for Speakers of Other Languages) programs shape adult learners, and how do adult learners, in turn, shape their programs? Beyond the acquisition of important skills (such as greater fluency in the English language) what are the bigger internal meanings for adults of participating in ABE/ESOL…