High demand exists for data to analyze the equitable distribution of school funding within and across school districts. In response to this growing demand, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) developed a new collection of finance data at the school level--the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS). The SLFS collects at the school level…

This report presents school-level finance data on expenditures by function from the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS). The SLFS is an extension of two existing collections being conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in collaboration with the Census Bureau: the School District Finance Survey (F-33) and the state-level…

The National Assessment Governing Board is conducting a program of research to determine the feasibility of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reporting on the academic preparedness of U.S. 12th grade students, in reading and mathematics, for college and job training. Twelfth grade is the end of mandatory schooling for most…

In this paper we consider the challenges involved in evaluating teacher preparation programs when controlling for school contextual bias. Including school fixed effects in the achievement models used to estimate preparation program effects controls for school environment by relying on differences among student outcomes within the same schools to…

Reexamines the feasibility of automatic thesaurus generation by establishing a framework for analyzing the degree of correspondence between automatically generated thesauri and a thesaurus of the same terms constructed by subject specialists. (Author/FM)

As GED (General Educational Development) Testing Service considers the feasibility of a computer administration of the GED Tests, one issue being considered is the difference in costs of supplying only a computer-based format vs. offering both computer-based and paper formats of the GED Tests. A significant concern then arises as to whether…

The feasibility of pre-equating, or establishing conversions from raw to scaled scores through the use of pretest data before operationally administering a test, was investigated for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Item-response theory based equating methods were used to estimate item parameters on SAT pretest data, instead of using final form…

The status of women and minorities in higher education is discussed, and two intervention strategies are described that were implemented by the Higher Education Resource Service (HERS, Mid-Atlantic) of the University of Pennsylvania to assist in training and advancement. In conjunction with Bryn Mawr College, HERS designed a month-long summer…