Approximately one-third of American freshmen at two-year and four-year colleges require remedial coursework and over 40 percent of employers rate new hires with a high school diploma as "deficient" in their overall preparation for entry-level jobs. Yet, over the past decade, as these students marched through America's public education…

The fundamental concepts of Achieving the Dream--using evidence to develop and evaluate strategies for improving student learning and success--are also important to successful efforts to meet accreditation requirements. Following the Achieving the Dream approach can help community colleges organize and document improvement efforts in ways that are…

In large-scale assessments, such as state-wide testing programs, national sample-based assessments, and international comparative studies, there are many steps involved in the measurement and reporting of student achievement. There are always sources of inaccuracies in each of the steps. It is of interest to identify the source and magnitude of…

Teacher evaluation has emerged as a major focus for reform at the highest levels of education policymaking, and for good reason. Most evaluations are based on scant evidence of actual effectiveness, produce inflated ratings, and provide teachers with little useful feedback. This paper offers policymakers and practitioners important "lessons…

Three attempts to improve the state approval process in accreditation are described, and their implications for improving the process are discussed. (JD)

Individuals and organizations are usually so immersed in day-to-day task completion that it is impossible to step back and scan the environment to determine (a) what work is crucial, (b) quality of current and past work, and (c) how the work contributes to larger organizational priorities. This focus on "just keeping up" with what must get done…

The IDEIA 2004 presents opportunities for change in our methods for improving the process of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) identification. While common approaches to improvement often focus on the assessment tools alone, consideration of stakeholder values and resource constraints are equally important to develop effective solutions that…

A study examined Florida's certification process for postsecondary vocational education teachers. After reviewing previous research on the certification of vocational educators in Florida, the commission solicited data analyzing the differences in teaching ability between certified and noncertified vocational teachers and the content validity,…

This report reviews the program evaluation approaches used at three member colleges of the National Postsecondary Alliance (NPA), a consortium of postsecondary schools intent on achieving excellence in occupational education. The first paper, "Introduction" by Luene Corwin, discusses the goals and major activities of the NPA. The second…

In 2009 the Obama administration announced a focused commitment to turn around 5,000 of the United States' chronically lowest-performing public schools as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This commitment came with $3 billion in funding for the School Improvement Grant program, or SIG, along with new guidelines to ensure…

This report summarizes the activities and outcomes of a planning project responsible for delineating and determining priorities of crucial, researchable issues in teacher education. The following considerations were made: (1) What does research and development suggest for the content of preservice, induction, and inservice teacher education? (2)…

The National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) was consulted to improve the formative evaluation design for the Principles of Technology (PT) curriculum materials developed by the Center for Occupational Research and Development (CORD) and the Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT). Because the NCRVE entered the formative…

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) was heralded as a major overhaul of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) program. Five years after passage of JTPA, the answer to the question of whether it has indeed managed to remedy CETA's shortcomings appears to be an unequivocal maybe. Although the JTPA has been praised by numerous…

Networks aiming for fundamental changes bring together a variety of actors who are part and parcel of a problematic context. These system innovation projects need to be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation approach that supports and maintains reflexivity to be able to deal with uncertainties and conflicts while challenging current practices…

After more than a decade (and four years behind schedule) Congress finally seems ready to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. For years, critics have complained that the law's focus on test scores offers far too narrow a picture for judging school quality. There is also concern that the "adequate yearly progress," or…