These guidelines, prepared by the Special Populations Strand of the Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (AACC), focus on the technical quality of assessments for English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). This document is an evolving document that will periodically be updated to incorporate new…

ALI is a project to develop an archive for talking books produced by the Swedish universities. The universities produce talking books from the mandatory literature for students with reading disabilities, including mostly journal articles, book chapters and texts written by teachers. The project group consists of librarians and co-ordinators for…

The primary goal of this project was to increase schools' resources and staff skills in providing function-based behavior support to individual students with chronic problem behaviors. Over the course of a 3-year period, 10 school teams received training in and on-site consultation on functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and behavior support…

The Ohio Supported Employment Coordinating Center of Excellence is a joint project of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences and the Department of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University. The center is focused on helping to implement and evaluate evidence-based employment services provided to individuals with a severe mental illness.…

This paper provides a critical analysis of New Zealand's Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF). The first section sketches the development and implementation of the PBRF. The second section evaluates the scheme, concentrating on three themes: the relationship between privatization, competition and research performance; the standardization of…

In this article, the author discusses Response to Intervention (RtI), a school-wide system of intervention. One of the advantages of RtI in the diagnosis of disabilities is that it allows schools to intervene early to meet the needs of struggling learners. RtI also maps those specific instructional strategies found to benefit a particular student,…

This report presents the state, district, and local education staff development objectives in South Carolina, based on defined educational needs assessment. Suggestions include definition of the change process, discussion questions, staff development planning, empowerment, and new opportunities. Each level of the program is based on the concept of…

This book provides a sociological and historical analysis of the evolution and demise of a state college's educational opportunity program, the goal of which was to compensate for unequal pre-college education and provide equal opportunities for economically and educationally disadvantaged students. The program was an example of a special…

Noting that family literacy is an intergenerational approach to education that addresses the needs of both the adult and child learner, this booklet presents aspects of family literacy programs and steps to help ensure the program's success. After discussing the need for family literacy, the book discusses the effectiveness of family literacy and…

This report describes the first year of implementation of the 5-year Accelerated Schools Project (ASP) at Blanche Pope Elementary School in rural Oahu (Hawaii). ASP trains school staff and community members to transform governance, curriculum, and instruction in schools serving predominantly at-risk and minority, low-achieving students. In…

The A.I.M. (Avondale Integrative Model) Program of Avondale School District in Auburn Hills, Michigan, is a developmental, language-based, preschool program, combining federally funded Head Start and district-funded Pre-Primary Impaired programs. The program is designed to utilize a developmentally appropriate curriculum in order to successfully…

This report provides the results of a comprehensive 4-year study of a statewide instructional improvement effort in Maryland; presents the characteristics of successful staff development for each of four implementation strategies (active teaching, mastery learning, student team learning, and teaching variables); and identifies the relationships…

A high school English teacher found that one easy way to keep the idea of positive reinforcement foremost in her mind when she works with students was to use writing portfolios. A Portfolio Assessment project was designed in which portfolios were used in two sophomore and two junior regular English classes. A flexible plan was developed for using…

The Attleboro (Massachusetts) Workplace Education Program, a partnership of four area companies and Bristol Community College, is intended to provide workers with education that will improve the quality of their lives and their work. Housed in a corporate office building in the Attleboro Industrial Park, the program offers classes in English as a…

What has transpired at James Madison University provides a model for the successful implementation of a basic communication education program required of all first-year students. This paper provides an accounting of the efforts that made possible the commitment to the development of the program. The paper is first divided into two columns. One…