The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) is a permanent, independent agency of the United States government, whose task is to advise the President and Congress on the implementation of national policy with respect to libraries and information science. To achieve its goals of appraising library and information…

Arguing that summaries of 562 studies from 1985 through 1994 reveal that almost no attention is paid to the cognitive effects of Head Start programs, this report criticizes Head Start as being steadily and more generously funded without evidence that it helps children's scholastic achievements. The report criticizes available studies as practicing…

Although the disappointing results of earlier ex-offender programs convinced many that "nothing works so let's just keep prisoners incarcerated longer," research in the 1980s and 1990s has shown that intensive pre-release employment training and post-release employment programs and support can cut the rate of recidivism. Current initiatives…

This book presents case studies of two highly successful teacher education programs. It is part of a three-volume series that includes seven case studies. It documents the goals, strategies, content, and processes of teacher education programs that are widely acknowledged as exemplars for preparing prospective teachers to engage in skillful,…

Work requirements in welfare reform proposed by the George W. Bush administration would impose much tougher work requirements on welfare recipients. Seventy percent of all adults would be required to work 40 hours per week, versus the 50 percent who are required to work 30 hours per week currently. In addition, states would be given little leeway…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on designing effective human resource development (HRD) programs that was conducted as part of a conference on HRD. "Leveraging System Factors for Increased Training Effectiveness" (David Ripley) is a conceptual paper that critiques current training design models and the lack of…

This report summarizes the initial findings from the 2004-2005 evaluation study of the program titled Building Academic Vocabulary (BAV). The theory and research supporting the development of this program are articulated in "Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement" (Marzano, 2004). Briefly, the basic assumption underlying the BAV…

Comprehensive school reform calls for a "whole-school" and coordinated approach to improve schools. The strategy differs from piecemeal and fragmented efforts that also in the past have seemed only to lead to short-lived changes. To stimulate whole-school reform across the country, Congress appropriated funds in FY1998 for the U.S.…

This report summarizes evaluation results for AISD's Summer Opportunity to Accelerate Reading (SOAR) program during summer 2001.

Summer Opportunity to Accelerate Reading (SOAR) 2002 was AISD's summer reading program serving 2,251 students completing kindergarten through grade 2 in June 2002. Among students with valid reading scores, 86% made reading gains during the program.

The purpose of the federal Title VI, Class Size Reduction program is to reduce class sizes in grades K-3 to 18 or fewer students. In AISD, these funds were used for recruiting, hiring, and training highly qualified teachers to raise student achievement through increased personal attention. This report summarizes evaluation results of AISD's Title…

This article is about one school district's effort to reform its elementary science curriculum through a program of professional development called Science, Parents, Activities and Literature (Science PALs). The differential exposure of the district's K-6 teachers to Science PALs and differences in how well teachers implemented Science PALs-type…

The history of (external) quality assurance schemes in European higher education since ca. 1980 is sketched in this article. The three pioneering countries in Western Europe are taken as models of different developments and contrasted with the rise of accreditation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Using theoretical insights, the dynamics…

This study examined teacher empowerment through the development of individual and collective teacher efficacy. A content-centered staff development program implemented in a Michigan school district by the New Zealand Ministry of Education and Oakland University helped teachers develop efficacy in the teaching of mathematics and in the ability to…

The importance of teamwork in Information Systems Development (ISD) practice and education has been acknowledged but not studied extensively to date. This paper tests a model of how groups participating in ISD projects perform and examines the relationships between some antecedents of this performance based on group research theory well…