Foresees a period of adversity for higher education, characterized by declining enrollments and financial resources. Urges colleges to look for ways to improve the quality of and expand their services, especially with regard to an increasingly part-time, adult student population. (AYC)

Entertains some general ideas about what arts accountability might look like, keeping in mind the obvious though often overlooked premise that testing should always be in the interests of the children tested. States why accountability is good for reasons beyond its perceived political expediency and outlines some of the major features necessary…

Student transportation complexities make evaluating a program's cost and quality very difficult. The first step in measuring performance is defining an operation's functional components: level of service delivery, units of service, and cost of services. Other considerations include routing, logistics, and fleet maintenance and support operations.…

Describes the purposes and roles of institutional researchers: (1) describe the institution, (2) analyze alternatives, (3) present the best case, and (4) supply impartial evidence, noting three dualities internal vs external demands; academic vs administrative culture; and institutional vs professional role that are particularly relevant. Also…

Over the past decade, the standards movement has come a long way, though the push for accountability has meant different things in different places. In this article, the author reports the effects of standards-based education in student achievement and the improvement of public schools. Though states had already begun setting clear and challenging…

This article describes one school of education's efforts to navigate a state-level mandate requiring that candidates for teacher certification demonstrate "positive impact on student learning." It explains ongoing efforts to make sense of the requirement, to measure its congruence with program philosophy, and to develop a response. The article…

Increasing availability of funds for development, design, and evaluation of alternative learning environments has challenged educational researchers to develop and validate innovative and effective interventions. The focus on accountability has resulted in an accelerated effort to record events, activities, and participation in substantive ways…

This article uses a program-level evaluation to assess the characteristics of smaller-scale project evaluations and their use for project improvement and accountability purposes. The authors used available information from the annual Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program evaluation surveys to describe the characteristics of evaluation…

This article reports how two prominent Democrats are demanding to know more about the problems identified in the implementation of the federal Reading First program, including whether criminal violations may have occurred and what Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings may have known about the problems while she was a White House aide. In the…

The state-administered grant program authorized under the "Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA)", enacted as Title II of the "Workforce Investment Act (WIA)" of 1998, is the major source of federal support for adult basic education and literacy education programs. When "AEFLA" was authorized in 1998,…

The purpose of the study reported in this article was to provide empirical evidence of students' views about a state performance assessment and its effects in science and social studies classrooms in Maryland. We developed 2 student questionnaires, 1 for each subject, and administered them to a statewide, stratified random sample of students in…

This paper presented preliminary findings of a 4-year study to test alternatives to the annual application and daily meal-counting procedures in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). It presents preliminary findings for school years 1990-91 and 1991-92. Data were collected from 12 pilot-site schools and school-food authorities (SFAs) to…

To assure accountability to educational policy developed by elected and appointed leaders, agencies and organizations must adopt high quality evaluation designs tailored to meet three basic tenets: (1) different processes for policy formation and demonstration of accountability; (2) clear accountability expectations built into policies; (3)…

This paper describes the level and nature of Title I Evaluation Technical Assistance services provided in 14 western states over the past six years. The primary data source is the routine information collected by the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) on all contacts with clients. Points made as a result of this review are focused on what the data…

This document consists of an introduction, five sections, and a list of 12 references. The introduction explains why cost-benefit analysis is being applied to training in developing countries--even in those in which the expenditure for education has reached enormous proportions. The first section reviews the main providers and beneficiaries of…