State policymakers are increasingly focused on closing the achievement gap and preparing all students to succeed in school and life. However, college and career readiness begins long before students enter high school or even a classroom. Differences in children's abilities appear as early as the first year of life, and research has shown that…

Complexity is a feature common to all vocational education and training (VET) governance arrangements, due to the wide range of students VET systems caters for, and the number of stakeholders involved in both decision making and funding and financing. In this article, Pierre and Peter's framework of governance is used to examine complexity in VET…

The "Goodbye To All That" (GOAT) Effect is introduced as a special research and evaluation "outcome" effect characterizing decision making unduly influenced by abandoning "write-off" tendencies. The "gradual refinement" approach offers an antidote to the GOAT Effect because it does not use the systems…

Evaluation is data gathering, analysis, and interpretation that leads to decisions about practices and goals. Relatively simple analytical techniques can suffice for many evaluation purposes. Evaluation of inservice education may be viewed as an operating system where input is provided, processes are implemented, and products are generated. When…

Part of a volume which explores current issues in service delivery to infants and toddlers (ages birth to 3) with handicapping conditions, this chapter discusses the process of change in relation to policy implementation of Public Law 99-457, beginning with an analysis of congressional, federal, and state dimensions. The concept of change is…

Reports the findings of a needs assessment study of congregate housing for the elderly. Used two models: the constant and the accommodating for the study. Suggests an alternative, balanced model involving intervention to strengthen the informal network. (RC)

Explores reasons for organizations' use of groups and the need for groupware systems. Discusses vendors; Electronic Problem Structuring; synchronous and asynchronous communication; four stages of decision-making (intelligence, design, choice, and implementation); the Windows environment; the loss of non-verbal communication; and future groupware…

Examines the benefits of Decision Support Systems (DSS) for end-user group decision making. An experiment was conducted which required groups to reach a consensus on human resource-related decisions. The results of the experiment provide implications for the use of group DDS in organizations and for future study. (Author/AEF)

Mental health center administrators are concerned about persons who contact centers but fail to keep initial appointments. Factors within centers that discourage client follow-through must be identified and changed. Telephone surveys were attempted for 50 such individuals from the youth (N=23) and adult (N=27) team logs of the Weber Mental Health…

Project Impact, a support system for the administrative and instructional staff in the Onondaga-Madison BOCES schools, was designed to support a diagnostic-prescriptive approach in the classroom by providing the information the teacher needs in order to make instructional decisions. It consists of a series of computer programs with a large storage…

The document presents a formative evaluation of the program development process used to produce the 13 kits in the Canadian Content Project. The objective is to recommend whether similar development models should be used in the future. The study is presented in three sections. Section I examines and compares three approaches to local program…

Because California lacks a statewide teacher data system, serious gaps in the collection, use, and availability of teacher workforce data compromise efforts to plan and monitor the workforce at both the state and local levels, leaving policymakers and education officials with little in-depth understanding of the current shortage of qualified…

The professional development process can be organized as a continuous, multifaceted, proactive, and integrated system that is futures-oriented and focused on adaptation as an essential organizational function. A systems model employing a university professional school as an example is presented. It focuses on professional schools because they lend…

Based on telephone interviews with 12 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries, this report presents the underlying reasons for the libraries' decisions relating to the design and implementation of automated library systems. The survey results are summarized, a list of respondents is provided, and profiles of present and planned…

Describes the selection of an automated library system for 11 university cluster libraries in Wisconsin, from the decision to automate and the development of a proposal request, through the selection process itself. Appendices include a chronology of events, participants in the process, a checklist of activities, and additional suggestions.…