Although successful by some standards, the basic writing program at Ball State University, Indiana, was altered over a period of several years because it was making incompatible demands on teachers and students alike. Public perception of the course allowed teachers some flexibility in writing instruction, but it demanded instruction in grammar…

Intended for writing instructors and content instructors who require writing in their courses, this document describes a college's writing skills assessment program and reviews the implications of a campus-wide approach to evaluating writing. The paper emphasizes that the scoring of placement and developmental English exit exams is done by the…

This paper describes the organization, design, and adaptations of the North York's Benchmarks Project (Ontario, Canada). This project began in response to the interests and innovations of several schools within a large school board. Then the project moved to the regional and whole-board level, implemented as a top-down strategy. The term…

A survey questionnaire returned by 161 institutions of higher education (an 80.5% return) addressed six areas of concern: (1) the institution's involvement in student learning outcomes assessment; (2) pre-assessment of students; (3) types of post-assessment; (4) efforts to relate pre-assessment and post-assessment; (5) attempts to do non-academic…

Open enrollment is an essential feature of the Education Department of the International Institute in St. Louis, a refugee sponsoring group offering a wide range of social, housing, and medical services; job counseling and placement; and English as a second language classes. The institute allows students to begin a language training program…

The vehicle through which effective undergraduate internships in multinational business and foreign languages are achieved is the learning agreement. It is the means for planning and implementing internships and it offers measurable goals by which student progress can be monitored and evaluated. It should include: a complete description of the…

A consortium was organized in 1977 to assist 16 school districts, covering 5,100 square miles and including 19,000 students in a largely rural part of Oregon, to comply with Public Law 94-142 which requires provision for appropriate public education for the estimated 12% of the school population who are handicapped. Problems making it difficult…

Throughout the 1990s, legislation increasingly required programs receiving federal funding to be more accountable for what they did. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 further emphasized the levels of accountability to ensure student success in schools. For limited English proficient (LEP) education, these requirements have intensified the…

This paper presents selected findings from a three-year research investigation of general and special education reform initiatives implemented in five local school districts across the United States (including a large urban, predominately minority system; two suburban districts; a small independent city district; a large county-wide system; two…