As for all teacher education programs, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been subject to a host of policy mandates for reform over the past three decades. As a group their approach to these changes has differed from those of majority institutions and their voice in the policy reform dialogue has been muted or absent. This…

This article examines the opportunities and limitations presented by organizing an undergraduate field research methods class as a policy think tank working for a government client. Organized as such, the course had both the learning objectives of a traditional undergraduate methods class and the corporate objectives of a policy think tank (i.e.,…

This paper examines recent trends in the establishment of state-level policies for the performance evaluation of experienced teachers. "Trends" are defined as the prevailing state-sanctioned currents of thinking that undergird teacher performance evaluation policies. The document includes a paper that reports on the specific nature of…

This paper identifies issues in defining and reporting performance standards for the 2002 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). The paper describes a continuum of conceptualizations of performance standards for adult literacy extending from "technical" conceptions of performance standards, as used in the psychometric literature,…