Reviews concerns about school-linked services programs, exploring institutional-based versus community-based models of service delivery. It is argued that the community is the appropriate context for providing and facilitating access to services and opportunities. Too strong an institutional bias runs the risk of limiting access and community…

Teacher quality, however defined, is usually seen as the responsibility of schools of education. Rarely is it viewed as the responsibility of academic departments in the arts and sciences--that part of college or university where prospective teachers study the academic content they will draw on as teachers. Only recently has teacher quality come…

The 4th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2011) brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large datasets to answer educational research questions. The conference, held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 6-9, 2011, follows the three previous editions…

This report provides a comprehensive review of quality principles in higher education and proposes that, when used holistically and systematically, the quality principles, also known as total quality management and continuous quality improvement, can create a culture for academic excellence. After an introduction, the first section explains the…

Members of the Research and Development Exchange (RDx) agreed to collaborate in the development of a resource base on the identification and validation of promising educational programs, practices, and products. State activities in validation and state concerns about and recommendations concerning current nationally used processes are the subject…

Survey findings on state educational validation procedures show that of the 50 states surveyed, 45 have some form of established procedure for validation promising educational practices. Approximately two-thirds of the states that have validation programs employ either the Identification, Validation, Dissemination (IVD) procedure or some…

Members of the Research and Development Exchange agreed to collaborate in the development of a resource base on the identification and validation of promising educational programs, practices, and products. Part of that effort has been the development of a central file of resource materials on validation and the abstracting and indexing of those…

A framework for monitoring quality control (QC) of processor contracts administered by the Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) is presented and applied to the Pell Grant program. Guidelines for establishing QC measures and standards are included, and the uses of a sampling procedure in the QC system are…

The Research and Development Exchange (RDx) is a network of regional educational laboratories and university-based research and development centers working to support state and local school improvement efforts. Initiated by the National Institute of Education in 1976, the RDx is composed of eight Regional Exchanges and four central support…

This report reviews the structure of the guidance field and provides a sector-by-sector analysis of current quality assurance arrangements in the United Kingdom. Part 1 presents an outline of the guidance sector, including some key concepts, structures, and roles. It defines guidance and other terms; discusses the three main categories…

This annual report details activities by the New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled, which oversees the public and private service system for individuals with mental disorders. The report notes that during 1994-1995, the Commission's cost-effectiveness studies identified over $15 million in potential savings, and…

This document describes six different approaches to outcomes assessments, approaches that are named in the titles of chapters 2 through 7. The chapters and authors are as follows: "Perspectives on Assessment Policy and Practice" (Bragg, Harmon); "Total Quality Management" (Bragg); "Assessing Student Success" (Harmon);…

The automotive industry continues to be the only industry that has set national standards for vocational-technical education and certification programs that meet those standards. The certification program for automotive technician training has proved that it improves the quality of training in programs at secondary and postsecondary levels.…

This policy paper includes four perspectives on educational quality presented at the 1983 annual meeting of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Gwen Morgan considers the role of government, raising questions about what regulatory agencies should do, can do, and cannot do in the light of public attitudes. Ways that…

Initial problems in developing desired social studies teachers' characteristics are identifying what good social studies instruction in the secondary school is, qualities a teacher must possess, and behaviors he or she must be able to demonstrate. Possible sources for standards are clock hours of work or number of courses; teacher recommendations;…