Most educational researchers have heard the adage, "If you want to measure change in performance, don't change the measure." At the same time, however, what students need to know and be able to do may change over time as research on teaching and learning provides new insights into the educational process, science and technology advance, and…

Various approaches to the professional development school (PDS)--each designed for its respective audience, mission, and purpose for engagement--have shaped the professional development school effort during the past 25 years. Central to these approaches is improving teacher quality in the service of student learning. This provides direction for…

For over fifty years, scholars have argued that a therapeutic ethos has begun to change how people think about themselves and others. There is also a growing concern that the therapeutic ethos has influenced educational theory and practice, perhaps to their detriment. This review article discusses three books, "The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic…

School choice is most often viewed through the lens of provision: most of the debate on the issue searches for desirable ways to offer vouchers, scholarships or other tools that provides choice as a way to achieve equality and/or freedom. This paper focuses on the consumer side of school choice, and utilises behavioural economics as well as…

Historical changes in the emphasis and focus of Project Head Start from 1965 to the present are briefly reviewed in this paper. Head Start was conceived of as primary prevention designed to enable children from lower income families to obtain educational prerequisites to formal schooling. The early years of the project were also characterized by…

Although tech prep is becoming widely accepted by educators and the business community, the jury is still out regarding whether its anticipated student, school, and community outcomes are being realized. In theory, tech prep's focus is primarily on school-based learning, whereas school-to-work programs also include work-based learning and linkages…

Dr. Hoyt will share his thoughts and dreams and those of his colleagues from the 1970s and '80s who laid the foundation and fought the fight to infuse career concepts into schools, businesses and communities. It is a dream that continues, and the author shares his hopes and plans for the restoration of education and work as a national priority. It…

Proponents of competency-based education and training (CBET) promote it as a way to improve the correspondence between education/training and workplace requirements. CBET's opponents consider it excessively reductionist, narrow, and rigid, as well as theoretically, empirically, and pedagogically unsound. The following are among the issues…

Comments on the new National Council on Economic Education standards and calls for more clarification and detail as well as additional standards. Argues that the almost-exclusive focus on principles-based standards ignores that need for explicit skill standards. Discusses possible difficulties for social studies teachers not trained in economics.…

The future of electronic learning was explored in an analysis that viewed the provision of learning at a distance as a continuum and traced the evolution from distance learning to electronic learning to mobile learning in Europe and elsewhere. Special attention was paid to the following topics: (1) the impact of the industrial revolution, the…

This document contains six studies that were commissioned for the National Assessment of Vocational Education. "Introduction" (Ann M. Milne) provides an overview of the reforms of the 1980s. "The Impact of Educational Reform on Vocational Education" (Marion Asche, Donald E. Elson, Ann Echols, Arthur Williams) examines primary…

The Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF) in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) offers 12 targeted training programs that have successfully helped "hard-to-serve" clients return to the workforce. Compared with traditional training, targeted training has a much narrower focus and adapts quickly to industry trends to meet employers' changing…