Three papers from the American Association for Higher Education conference in 1990 are presented. The first, "Streams of Thought about Assessment" by K. Patricia Cross, discusses three strands of interest in assessment aimed at educational improvement. These three movements are: (1) state-level accountability; (2) institutional assessment; and (3)…

The Program for Student Achievement (PSA) focused on improving urban middle-grades student achievement in participating districts in Texas and California. Districts were asked to establish performance targets for eighth graders in core academic areas. The PSA conducted a quantitative evaluation of districts' progress and produced an annual report…

Improving the efficiency of schools is a growing concern of educational planners and managers in Asian countries in recent years. The seminar on Improving School Efficiency was convened in December 1998 to address this concern. Seminar topics in this book cover challenges to educational reform, including the introduction of school-based…

Fifty sessions with nearly 70 presenters or discussion leaders examined all aspects of comprehensive systems for accountability and educational improvement at the 1998 national conference of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Topics ranged from national assessment to innovative uses of technology, from…

The conference reported in this document was attended by representatives of seven states (Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington). Participants focused on three key questions: (1) what are the issues and objectives behind assessment in each state? (2) what can be done regarding the implementation of…

This report comprises edited versions of the presentations from the 17 participants in a conference under the sponsoreship of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. The conference was designed to enable policy-makers, educators, and business people to share perspectives on the most effective methods for identifying and collecting data that…

The National Assessment Governing Board and the National Center for Education Statistics sponsored a Joint Conference on Standard Setting for Large-Scale Assessments to provide a forum for technical and policy issues relevant to setting standards at local, state, and national levels. Volume I contains an executive summary of the conference and…

This proceedings of a conference on rural education includes 2 keynote speeches and abstracts of 50 conference sessions. The following key issues relevant to rural and small schools were emphasized in the conference sessions: (1) innovative uses of emerging technologies in rural and small schools; (2) rural education in transition; (3) rural…

The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Summit that focused on the education and academic achievement of African American students was unique because the school district and the African American community came together as partners to seek ways to improve the educational status of African American students. This report tells the story of…

The rigorous assessment and accountability provisions in the landmark No Child Left Behind Act are challenging educators to explore new ways to improve instruction in the nation's schools. One powerful tool in this transformation is technology. To generate and share ideas on how technology can assist educators, two technology summits are convened…

The U.S. Department of Education 2004 National High School Summit took place December 2-3, 2004, in Washington, D.C. Nearly 1000 individuals participated-educators, policymakers, business leaders, and government officials. The event built on the work the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) had done with states over the prior year and…

The National Advisory Council on Educational Research and Improvement sponsored a conference to take a close look at the practical ways in which education is being reformed, and perhaps transformed, with the assistance of private-sector advice and innovations and with certain business disciplines. Following are the titles and authors of the papers…

The proceedings include conference welcomes by Leon R. McCarrey and Peter J. Krueger, six papers, a list of conference participants, and proceedings of previous meetings. "Higher Education: Beacon or Mirror," by Keith Goldhammer, traces the history of higher education and its purposes, calling for renewed efforts to increase its quality…

The forum on partnerships to improve teaching the arts was an outgrowth of earlier gatherings and of research to identify and respond to current challenges to sustain and enhance quality arts teaching. During 1999 the Arts Education Partnership convened a task force which concluded that improved teaching hinges on collaborations among three key…

This paper summarizes issues and perspectives that form the basis of current educational debate. The paper contends that early in the 21st century, Hispanics and other minorities will constitute the majority of the work force in major markets across the nation. The lack of preparedness of over half the potential pool of minority workers will have…