Act 82 of 2012 established new standards for Pennsylvania's teacher evaluation system, including the incorporation of student performance measures in ratings decisions. Since 2009, approximately 35 states have amended teacher evaluation systems, with student achievement playing an increasingly prominent role. This count includes neighboring…

Founded in 1821, Widener University is a two-state (Pennsylvania and Delaware), four-campus, eight-college private institution serving approximately 6,700 students. Following arrival of the new senior vice president and provost in 2004 and subsequent reorganization of vice presidential responsibilities, Student Affairs is now led by a dean of…

Founded in 1855 as the Farmer's High School, the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) began as a small college in Centre County providing agricultural education to young men from regional farm families. Penn State became a land-grant university in 1863 following passage of the Morrill Act. Today, Penn State enrolls more than 83,000 students…

Evaluation must be an integral part of the educational process concerned with the continuing development of better procedures and techniques for measuring outcomes of the educational program. The best evaluation is carried on by the local school district as self-evaluation. The manual provides forms for self-evaluation of vocational-technical…

Describes a process that measures the varying performance of county mental health systems in achieving goals. Performance and relative need are then used to make differential allocation of state funds for services. The process reinforces attempts to meet goals, and has lowered the gap in per capita funding. (Author/JAC)

The Pennsylvania Plan for Educational Quality Assessment is discussed as to its beginnings, its goals, its implementation, and its future. The plan aids schoolmen of the State in assessing the quality of education their schools are providing in relation to 10 goals, which propose to encourage the students to develop self-understanding,…

The results of the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment program, Phase II, are interpreted. The first section of the manual presents a statement of each of the Ten Goals of Quality Education which served as the basis of the assessment. Also included are the key items on the questionnaires administered to 5th and 11th grade students. The…

Findings of Phase I (Pilot Program) of the Pennsylvania Assessment of Educational Quality program are presented in relation to the design of the phase, the rationale for measurement, the procedures for data collection and data processing, and the results of the first analysis of the data. Tests were given to 1413 fifth graders and 1285 eleventh…

In response to a mutual need for better communication between the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Bureau of Vocational and Adult Education (BVAE) and four universities in Pennsylvania operating vocational education professional personnel development centers, an accountability system was designed through a cooperative effort with center…

In the current environment of global economic restructuring, changes in work and employment, and large-scale immigration to the United States, adult basic education (ABE) is facing demands that it be accountable for its performance by demonstrating its success in terms of student and societal outcomes. The increasing calls for ABE to develop a…

Designed to guide and structure the needs assessment of Pennsylvania children with special health care needs, this document describes six specific steps in planning and conducting a needs assessment. The steps include: (1) stating the goals of the needs assessment, including fulfilling legislative mandates, identifying geographical areas that have…

A project was conducted to redesign the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education required student tracking form to provide for better student tracking. The Student Intake and Data form supplied by the PDE from program year 1996-97 was used as a point of comparison, and evaluations of this form by…

Pennsylvania does not have a legislatively mandated program in place for assessing teacher education programs in institutions of higher education. This study was conducted to examine how Pennsylvania's public and private universities and colleges assess the quality of their teacher education programs. Deans and/or chairs of teacher education…

This document includes a project description, an evaluator's report, and other information on an itinerant teacher program at Mount Aloysius Junior College (MAJC) in Cresson, Pennsylvania. MAJC, a private institution sponsored by the Religious Sisters of Mercy, enrolls 550 full-time and 450 part-time students. The program, supported by the Fund…