High-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs have a positive effect on youth development, but many cities have found it difficult to address the challenges of expanding and improving the quality of programs offered to underserved and high-need students. In response, The Wallace Foundation sponsored an initiative to help five cities increase…

This pamphlet takes a tested Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program from the recent past and relates it to today's circumstances and contexts. The MAT program recruits outstanding liberal arts graduates who have completed little or no undergraduate course work in education and places them in a graduate program that requires the successful…

While Follow Through programs over the past 12 years have been committed to meeting the expectations of government officials and other concerned citizens, the program now must document what is expected of the project and how those expectations will be measured. If this major deficiency is not addressed immediately, the program probably will end.…

A self-administered health questionnaire can be a useful and relatively inexpensive method of obtaining initial health histories on students and identifying problems that require follow-up by the health center. (MJB)

Describes the Community Mental Health Technology Program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, which provided large numbers of middle-level technicians to work with the handicapped. The article describes program courses and purpose and the types of jobs technicians are qualified to perform. (CT)

This third and final article on effectiveness and efficiency in industrial training contains a number of suggestions on how to improve training effectively and describes how they are going about it in the Netherlands. (Author)

This paper is a report of the development of a systematic process for locating instructional design alumni and recruiting them to provide feedback from their workplaces. The purpose is to make alumni part of the process for program improvement. The process for tracking, contacting, and gathering data from alumni is described. In addition, the…

Compares fine arts and the art of training design. Suggests ways to design programs creatively to transform people's performance: (1) break the rhythm; (2) combine apples and oranges; (3) get out of order; (4) toy with success; and (5) put on a good show. (JOW)

Describes how the field experience for students of educational administration at Northwest Missouri State University was restructured, by defining responsibilities, adding a research component, and clarifying the evaluative process. (SR)

Discusses study findings of the "Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers" that support the position that efforts of center directors to provide quality childcare services are often undermined by purchasing practices of parents and public agencies. (DR)

Lists six recommendations made by consultants who evaluated a writing program at Lehigh University. Gives a brief history of the problem that led to each of the recommendations. Offers five tips for others who are thinking of doing a writing program evaluation. (MG)

The various arts and sciences that comprise the field of program evaluation are discussed. It is argued that emphasis on rigor and expressive content has left other aspects of evaluation unexplored. Educational evaluators need to consider what programs mean and how they contribute to understanding. (SLD)

Mentors and proteges from two formal mentoring programs were interviewed about the benefits associated with program participation, problems encountered in the program, and recommendations for program improvements. The most commonly reported benefits for proteges included learning, coaching, career planning, and psychosocial support. Mentors most…

Teacher quality is a central pillar of the No Child Left Behind Act for good reason. Without high-quality teachers, one cannot realize the goal of high achievement for all students. In turn, if preservice teachers do not receive the highest-quality teacher preparation, then one cannot meet the demand for high-quality teachers. Few would argue…

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Graduate Education Initiative (GEI) provided funding to 54 departments in the humanities and related social sciences during the 1990s to improve their PhD programs. This article estimates the aspects of PhD programs the GEI influenced and how these aspects influenced attrition and graduation probabilities. It uses…