The "Principles & Standards for Quality Charter School Authorizing," first established in 2004, reflect the lessons learned by experienced authorizers. This foundational resource for National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has been used to guide authorizing practices across the country and is referenced in state…

Charter school authorizing is a powerful strategy for making excellent public schools and educational opportunities available to all students. Done well, charter authorizing increases student achievement by expanding the supply of quality public schools to satisfy unmet needs--particularly by providing life-changing opportunities for students…

The Commonwealth of Learning is proud to partner with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Higher Education and UNESCO to produce this "Quality Assurance Toolkit for Distance Higher Education Institutions and Programmes". The Toolkit has been prepared with three features. First, it is a generic document on quality assurance, complete with a…

The success of corporate instructional design projects depends on how well the practitioner performs in the field under specific circumstances. Benchmarking is one of the major business strategies for continuous improvement. A thorough inquiry into how exceptional corporate instructional designers function lends insights into the instructional…

This report reviews the practices implemented by 53 different state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to address quality assurance concerns. The broader spectrum of monitoring practices and evaluation systems used by different state agencies to assess worker and agency performance is first reviewed. The report then focuses on the range of…

This appendix accompanies a report on state vocational rehabilitation agency practices to control for quality and timelines in case management systems. The materials, related to quality assurance and case flagging, are representative of the variety of methods used by 42 states and Puerto Rico. (The states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,…

Papers presented at the seminar include an introduction to information processing which describes some techniques for use of the computer; the analysis of information systems and its role in the development of information systems; the effect on systems performance of building design and environmental standards; the concept of traditional printing…

Lagging productivity and increased competitiveness from abroad are forcing U.S. management companies to adopt new management styles that promote efficiency and quality in production. High on the agenda is the incorporation of Statistical Process Control (SPC). SPC requires definition of process and product specifications to facilitate their…

This book provokes a re-examination of how expert knowledge, not practitioner know-how, has come to dominate how Americans judge and improve schools. It depicts the English tradition of school inspection to provoke the invention of better ways for judging and knowing schools in America. Data were gathered by observation of 39 local and national…

The way that the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) should conduct its quality assurance function of monitoring a processing contractor is described. For the following quality assurance procedures, information is provided on the goal of the procedure, activities to be measured, measures, and the role of…

This paper focuses on the data ramification of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998. Section 1 provides an outline of the role of these postsecondary institutions under WIA: members of the State and local boards; one-stop operators; one-stop partners; and eligible service…

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…

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);…

As public funds decline and the political climate changes, accountability and quality assurance are important issues for U.S. colleges and universities, and institutional leaders are concerned about a shift away from the established institution-centered structures, toward government-mandated, standards-driven systems. This paper explores the…