Discusses military training programs--those competency-based educational activities with operational objectives designed to have an impact on individual and unit performance. (JOW)

Provides a basic model for instructional technology and discusses its applicability to community colleges. Reviews the role of mastery learning and competency-based instruction in reforming general education in the community college. Identifies the elements common to most successful instructional programs. (DMM)

Trainers must understand and be prepared to convince others that writing is a set of work behaviors that can readily be taught by modern, competency-based, adult learning technology. Trainers should focus on learners, define job-related writing behaviors, use behavior to teach behavior, and provide positive feedback. (JOW)

Task performance measures are criterion-referenced tests that can improve the effectiveness, accountability, and control of vocational training programs. They provide the means for basing instruction and evaluation on job performance requirements rather than arbitrarily derived subject matter. (JOW)

If distributive educators are concerned with providing the best training available, cooperative vocational education must not be viewed as an add-on to the distributive education program. The cooperative program can provide the opportunity students need to hone the skills, knowledge, and attitudes initially developed within the local distributive…

An overview and critique, with special reference to independent schools, of the minimum competency testing movement as a solution to the political and educational furor over declining student achievement. (SJL)

An overview of accountability in public education is presented in this publication. Contents include a review of recent accountability efforts, an outline of a comprehensive accountability model, an analysis of accountability strategies, and a discussion of means for incorporating system indicators into the larger systemic framework. A conclusion…

Educators should assess the economics curricula in order to determine whether the latest and most accurate views of economic life in the United States and the world are taught to high school students. Economic literacy involves knowing and applying fundamental economic theories in order to make rational decisions about the use of limited…

The National Center for Research in Vocational Education's performance-based teacher education (PBTE) materials have been widely adopted and have had a marked impact on vocational instructor training and staff development. It has been found that the cooperative development procedures, extensive field testing, and the numerous institutional, state,…

The Skills Standards Projects have provided further emphasis on the need for benchmarking U.S. vocational-technical education (VTE) against international competition. Benchmarking is an ongoing systematic process designed to identify, as quantitatively as possible, those practices that produce world class performance. Metrics are those things that…

This paper presents ideas relating to curriculum organization from the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development publication, "Excellence in Our Schools: Making It Happen," which attempted to synthesize nine reports written in response to the National Commission on Excellence in Education report, "A Nation at…

Presents a discussion of frequently stated strengths and weaknesses of performance-based teacher education (PBTE). The author suggests that PBTE has both strong points and weak points and that the key is to integrate the strong points into traditional teacher education programs. (LRA)

Competency-based teacher education has provided institutions preparing students to become teachers of vocational agriculture with a basis for sequencing, unduplicated instruction, relevance, accountability, and some degree of measurability in the development of professional teacher education programs. (JOW)

Indicates that performance-based education (PBTE) falls short of its promises because of fundamental flaws. States that PBTE does not capture the complexity of teaching, is behavioristic, and lacks a research base. (JOW)

Reviews the Child Development Associate (CDA) program for training child care professionals, and suggests changes for both its immediate and long-range future. (Author/CM)