How educational leaders initiate and sustain change is often hotly debated by those inside and outside of the system. Given the many reform initiatives of the past 30 years, and the resulting changes public educators have made lurching from initiative to initiative, one must ask if public education has truly improved. The answer to why public…

Several federal grants prioritized the role of community colleges in education and training in recent years, and one of the most substantial investments was the Trade Adjustment Act Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program of the United States Department of Labor (DOL). Beginning October 2011, these $2 billion capacity-building…

The number of school districts needing to focus their attention on ensuring that their students are receiving a 21st Century education has grown considerably with the creation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the looming deadline of the 2014-2015 school year when the new assessments will be given. The assessment dates,…

This study is a case study of the diffusion of a successful middle college program to an early college high school in a densely populated county in the upper Midwest. The data from interviews with 17 respondents who had been designers or implementers of either the first or the diffused model defined the essential elements of success of the first…

Engineering education directly supports the nation's capacity for economic growth, infrastructure renewal, and security, as well as environmental and human health. Numerous reports have recommended federal support to advance our understanding of how students learn, how faculty teach, and how teaching and learning are assessed. The U.S. National…

Many educators agree that we already know how to foster student success, so what is keeping common sense from becoming common practice? The author provides step-by-step guidance for overcoming the barriers to adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and achieving equity and excellence for all students. As an experienced teacher and…

This article traces the development of the OpenCourseWare movement, including the origin of the concept at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the implementation of the MIT OpenCourseWare project, and the idea's spread into the global educational community, ultimately resulting in the formation of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. The…

This article draws lessons from experience at UNESCO and Eidos pertinent to the issues of developing East-West Partnership in education. For the past 60 years, UNESCO's mission has been to promote international co-operation. It has been very much involved in promoting intellectual co-operation among the professional leaders in education. Eidos is…

The first part of a 3-part guide developed as a resource for people involved in the selection and implementation of new programs in school settings, this overview describes a wide range of linking agent roles and skills, and discusses training and support mechanisms for linking agents. Chapters address (1) the assumptions underlying the overview,…

The second part of a 3-part guide developed as a resource for people involved in the selection and implementation of new programs in school settings, this collection of articles covers such topics as consultation, educational change, and linking processes. The following readings are included: "Behavior of Innovative Personnel," by Gary…

The third part of a 3-part guide developed as a resource for people involved in the selection and implementation of new programs in school settings, this examination of each phase of the linking agent's work contains articles and papers by more than 30 authors and is organized according to six stages: (1) initiating the relationship with the…

The challenges to teacher educators in sub-Saharan Africa are acute. This paper describes how the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) consortium is working within institutional and national policy systems to support school-based teacher professional development. The TESSA consortium (13 African institutions and 5 international…

This resource guide/workbook is designed to show how to form and operate a tech prep/associate degree (TPAD) consortium. It contains 20 activity-oriented units that can be used by the planning teams to put the consortium together and get it running. Each unit may contain descriptive material (or scenarios), guidelines, resources, suggestions,…

This report is the summary of key aspects of Tech Prep in Illinois over the five year period of 2001-2005 during which all Tech Prep consortia provided annual data based on federal legislative requirements and state-determined essential elements of successful programs. These annual Tech Prep reports enable local educators to monitor student…

In 1993, 473 (55%) of the nation's 855 local tech prep consortia were surveyed regarding tech prep's goals, policies, practices, and obstacles. The 397 responding consortia (response rate, 84%) were sent follow-up surveys in 1995. Responses were obtained from 339 (85%) of the consortia. The follow-up survey revealed the following: increases in the…