How to best address the professional learning needs of those aspiring to leadership roles in schools is a crucial issue. Robust evaluation practices are needed to determine the quality of current provisions and to identify where improvements can be made. This paper considers the quality of professional learning programmes using a set of 10…

Having implemented and evaluated over 35 mlearning projects in a variety of contexts in higher education over the past 6 years the researcher is ready to share the untold secret: not all mlearning projects succeed! This article critiques three of the researcher's mlearning projects that can be classed as "failures" and compares them to successful…

The "PISA 2009 Technical Report" describes the methodology underlying the PISA 2009 survey. It examines additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. The reader will find a wealth of information on the test and sample design,…

District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) is a state-funded program in Texas that provides grants to districts for the implementation of locally-designed performance pay plans. All districts in the state are eligible to receive grants, but participation is voluntary. As D.A.T.E. continues in its second year of operation with approximately…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the second-year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, a statewide educator incentive program that operated in Texas. As part of this larger study, evaluators examined how participation in the TEEG…

The article reports on the findings of a comparative case study of six projects that operated in Israel between 1980 and 2000. The study findings identify characteristics of the programs, the host organizations, and the social and political environment, which differentiated programs that are sustained from those that are not. The findings reaffirm…

In order to help users make informed decisions when buying communications software, this article suggests that buyers consider communications software compatibility; software protocols for data transmission; software products offering compatibility with Telenet, Prestel, and Ethernet/XTEN; specific intended applications; and specialized features…

In "Holding Accountability to Account: How Scholarship and Experience in Other Fields Inform Exploration of Performance Incentives in Education"--a paper presented at the National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference in February--Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, argues educational…

A discussion of merit pay programs for college faculty looks at the advantages and disadvantages of such systems, the design of some operational programs, key issues in making merit pay awards, and components of effective systems. Alternative ways to recognize differences in performance are also considered. (MSE)

Discusses a collaborative approach to evaluating professional training methods. Describes 4 objectives and 10 steps for "evaluating evaluation" that include identifying the training and evaluation goal, forming an evaluation team, designing the evaluation, developing the methods, collecting data, interpreting findings, and reporting results. (AEF)

Pay for performance is a popular public education reform, and millions of dollars are currently being targeted for pay for performance programs. These reforms are popular because economic and management theories suggest that well-designed incentive pay programs could improve teacher effectiveness. There is little evidence about the characteristics…

In U.S. K-12 public education, incentive pay for educators remains firmly fixed as a high-interest policy topic and has recently become a popular reform initiative in many school systems. The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), created in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, is at the forefront of this policy movement and has provided hundreds of…

Analyzes the basis on which early childhood programs are accredited and deferred and what criteria are frequently not met by accredited and deferred programs. National Academy of Early Childhood Programs decisions for accredited programs and for deferred programs are presented. The programs are then compared. (BB)

The original plans for the Follow Through (FT) program were to provide a program extending the Head Start community action model to the public schools which would serve all disadvantaged children. Because of the small budget allocation authorized by the Congress, the United States Office of Education reformulated FT as an experimental program of…

The original plans for the Follow Through (FT) program were to provide a program extending the Head Start community action model to the public schools which would serve all disadvantaged children. Because of the small budget allocation authorized by the Congress, the United States Office of Education reformulated FT as an experimental program of…