The debate surrounding teacher quality often fails to differentiate effectively between teacher-preparation providers. This failure also extends to distinguishing between teachers prepared in traditional campus-based accredited programs from those prepared in unaccredited campus-based programs. This paper compares assessment infrastructure and…

Provides tips for helping the public understand a school district's budget. Describes necessary parts of a simplified budget presentation and the $100 budget. Highlights a management-information software package called In$ite, developed by Coopers & Lybrand in conjunction with the US Chamber of Commerce. (LMI)

Increasingly, teachers rely on computer software and networks to both enhance curriculum management and provide engaging learning opportunities in instruction. New software is enabling more frequent formative assessments to better focus day-to-day lessons on the unique needs of individual learners. Administrators use increasingly complex data…

Since the inception of the No Child Left Behind legislation, school districts have been faced with a growing need to gather, analyze and monitor more data than ever before in the management of school performance. Accountability mandates also have placed a greater emphasis on gleaning the most granular types of information from these large sources…

The CO/OP (founded in 1973 as the Massachusetts Association of School Business Officials Cooperative Corporation) has created and produced administrative software for schools. Describes two areas in which software can increase revenue and provide protection for personnel: (1) invoice/accounts receivable for the rental of school space; and (2) an…

The Vocational Competency Achievement Tracking System (VoCATS) in North Carolina is a competency-based instructional management system that allows the collection of data on student performance achievement before, during, and after instruction. A preliminary pilot study was conducted to evaluate the implementation of the VoCATS program with…

The way that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) should conduct its quality assurance function of monitoring a processing contractor is described. For the following quality assurance procedures, information is provided on the goal of the procedure, activities to be measured, measures, and the role of…

A framework for monitoring quality control (QC) of processor contracts administered by the Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) is presented and applied to the Pell Grant program. Guidelines for establishing QC measures and standards are included, and the uses of a sampling procedure in the QC system are…