Effective public education is necessary for a democratic, prosperous, and civil society. Alabama's employers need a highly qualified workforce to sustain the state's economic growth. At the same time, we live in a global society where digital technologies are rapidly redefining jobs, communities, and opportunities for students. While Alabama is…

This Network Directory is part of the effort by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) School Improvement Program to promote communication among educational professionals about school improvement. Specifically, the directory is designed to provide information for networking among schools involved in systematic, long-term…

Many National Diffusion Network facilitators have expressed the desire for an expanded source book on Developer/Demonstrator projects that they can use in conjunction with "Educational Programs That Work" and the "Materials Inventory" in planning awareness and training activities and negotiating adoptions. This directory is a…

This program has been developed to train those who would direct educational improvement and change efforts. This training program was written to transfer the findings of research described in "School Context and School Change: Implications for Effective Planning" by Corbett, Dawson, and Firestone (1984, Teachers College Press) to practice. Six…

Outcomes and applications of Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) study groups composed of teachers and administrators to investigate a single educational issue and develop a product of use to practitioners are described in this report. Contents include an introduction of the study group as a professional development tool, a discussion of the…

This paper reports results of a 1979 survey of heads of evaluation units in public school districts and state departments of education. The survey was primarily concerned with current versus ideal procedures for determining program evaluation budgets and evaluators' perceived reasons for the low fiscal priority given evaluation activities.…

An evaluation research capability was used to document the design and implementation of two programs in a large urban school district. This paper describes the research context, the origins of the role of resident evaluator, the broad functions of this role, and factors contributing to the usefulness of this approach. (BW)

Local schools, teacher education institutions, and other state agencies have recognized the advantages of the network concept and have moved toward relying on the state IGE network structures. (MM)

This manual is intended to be a how-to guide for school district leaders who want to begin using a school-based approach to improve the quality of education in their districts. The manual provides a brief review of the school-based improvement process--what it is and the rationale for using it. One section deals with implementing school-based…

This monograph focuses on educational evaluation and how it occurs within a specific setting--school districts' central administrative offices--examining the relationships between evaluation activities and district organizational features that impinge upon such activities. The various chapter authors worked with the Center for the Study of…

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District Office of Program Evaluation and Research is responsible for providing information for program development and improvement; providing test information to special programs coordinators; and acting as a clearinghouse for all information concerning tests, evaluation methodology, and educational…

The nature of educational evaluation and its interaction with policy in six state departments of education is examined. Case reports of research and evaluation units are presented for Virginia (by Gerald W. Bracey), Michigan (by David L. Donovan and Stanley A. Rumbaugh), Washington (by Alfred F. Rasp, Jr.), South Carolina (by Paul D. Sandifer),…

The Center for the Study of Evaluation Systems Project focuses on assessing the costs and impacts of managing testing, evaluation, and instructional (T/E/I) systems through a collection of nine papers: (1) "School District Evaluation Offices: Are They Worth the Money?," by Richard C. Williams and Pam McGranahan; (2) "How Two…

The structure and function of the California Educational Research Cooperative (CERC), a collaborative action research organization designed to link research to educational practice, is described in this paper. A brief history of school-university partnerships and a review of the status of these partnerships is provided, followed by a description…

The papers presented at this conference review current research on effective educational practices for low-achieving students and identify those that might be applied to programs funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. A function assumed by several conference participants was to act as reactor to papers…