The project's purpose was to implement a vocational curriculum evaluation model developed by the Metropolitan Community College (MCC) District. The model was formatively field tested with ten MCC vocational programs and implemented in the evaluation of twenty-four vocational programs. The model's criteria was based on the program's (1)…

Developing school leaders who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to effectively lead low-performing schools has become a critical goal for local school districts intent on dramatically improving student outcomes. Given the current criticism surrounding leadership preparation programs and the changing nature of school…

In fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project to develop and test multiple measures of teacher effectiveness. The goal of the MET project is to improve the quality of information about teaching effectiveness available to education professionals within states and districts--information…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the National Board Teacher Certification (NBTC) process was an effective form of professional development for teachers that would result in changing teachers' instructional practice resulting in improved student learning. The study also examined how a cohort of NBTC candidates impacted the non-NBTC…

Many educators and researchers have proposed reforms for dealing with the ongoing adolescent literacy crisis. Progress in strengthening young people's literacy now depends on schools a) choosing appropriate programs and b) implementing them consistently and effectively. Yet the history of school reform is littered with reforms that were adopted…

In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), one of the German states, catchment areas for part-time vocational schools were abolished in 2008. With the intention to foster competition between schools in order to improve school quality, training companies now may freely choose the school of their choice. NRW is the first German state to take this step. In the…

A school improvement program that provided support to poor-performing schools on the basis of needs identified in a school improvement plan was implemented in 72 government schools in Jamaica, from 1998 to 2005. In this independent evaluation of the program, we use propensity score matching to create, post hoc, a control group of schools that were…

Addressing increasing levels of disruptive behavior and improving discipline is a national matter. The challenge is intensified by teachers' concerns about the growing inclusion of students with emotional and behavioral problems in general education classrooms and the general levels of diversity common in America's schools. Removing children with…

"High Schools That Work" (HSTW) is a school improvement initiative that was inaugurated by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in 1987. The main purpose of this concurrent validity study is to evaluate one or more measures by investigating their relationship to other commonly used and established measures given at or about the…

The Teen Outreach Reproductive CHallenge (TORCH) is a peer education program that provides information on various topics relevant to adolescent sexual health to a diverse audience, ranging from teens to health care providers. This information is disseminated through various projects by a group of New York City high-school students who are…

While it is clear that reading is critical to children's success throughout schooling and reading instruction research has dramatically increased over the past 2 decades, few early childhood providers have the necessary knowledge, skills and/or confidence to effectively implement evidence-based, emergent literacy strategies in their settings. This…

These issues contain abstracts of research reports, literature reviews, conference proceedings, directories, project reports, and other documents describing work being done in the field of technical and further education in Australia. The issues contain 103 and 147 entries, respectively. Each entry contains the following information: a Technical…

A three-year project was undertaken by the National Center for research in Vocational Education (Ohio State University, OH) to investigate time on task in vocational and technical classes. During the first year of the project, researchers used the direct observation method to collect time-on-task data pertaining to 10 teachers and 186 students in…

Implications of developmental characteristics of youth are assessed for community education-work councils and the career education programs which councils might be expected to sponsor, in order to decide whether to evaluate councils, and if so, what outcomes councils might be expected to affect. Youth are defined to include pre-adolescent children…

These proceedings contain the texts of 20 reports presented at a conference organized to review and assess the status of the following types of performance/competency-based approaches to the professional development of vocational teachers and administrators: performance-based teacher education (PBTE), competency-based teacher education (CBTE),…