According to the latest report by the Institute of International Education, 586,323 foreign students studied in the United States in the 2002-2003 academic year. Foreign students benefit U.S. colleges and universities in many ways, including economic contributions and the value of their work as teachers and researchers, but there has been…

Begun in 1969, the Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS) records, maintains, and transfers education and health information on over 600,000 migrant children in 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This information is used by local educators dealing with individual migrant students, and by local, state, and federal…

Difficulties faced by homeless children include depression, low self-esteem, lack of sleep and nutrition, and feelings of shame and embarrassment. Challenges faced by schools in providing education to homeless children include: (1) keeping children in one school despite frequent family moves; (2) ensuring that children's health records are…

Performance assessment offers an approach to assessment different from that of group-administered standardized tests by documenting activities in which children engage on a daily basis. Flexible enough to reflect individual academic achievement and designed to evaluate elements of learning not captured by standardized tests, the Work Sampling…

The Migrant Education Program (MEP) was reauthorized for 5 years, effective July 1, 1995. Legislative changes in eligibility, priority for services, schoolwide projects, student record transfer, the summer funding formula, and consortium incentives make this the most sweeping one-time change in programming for migrant children and youth since the…

This digest briefly reviews the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 (the Buckley Amendment), which sets out legal guidelines regarding the privacy of student records and the provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act, along with the measures some colleges are implementing to comply with these laws and improve the…

A portfolio is a meaningful collection of student work that tells the story of student achievement or growth. There are two basic reasons for doing portfolios--assessment or instruction. Benefits for using portfolios in instruction include the development of students self-reflection, critical thinking, responsibility for learning, and content area…

Founded in 1969, the Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS) is a nationwide computerized information network which records, maintains, and rapidly transfers educational and health information on more than 750,000 identified migrant children in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, the…

This digest provides practical advice on evaluating software for managing student records. An evaluation of record-keeping software should start with a process to identify all of the individual needs the software produce must meet in order to be considered for purchase. The first step toward establishing an administrative computing system is…

Written in English and Spanish, the handbook is intended to (1) provide useful information from numerous sources to school administrators, education program staff, and home-school liaison personnel; and (2) assist school staff in informing migrant parents about their rights and responsibilities, both as members of parent advisory councils (PACs)…

The number of pages in the Federal Register devoted to regulations affecting higher education increased 1,000 percent from 1965 to 1977. It is suggested that it is beneficial for all campus administrators to be aware of the central issues involved in federal regulations. A synopsis of the regulations with which administrators most frequently come…

Secondary educators are using ways other than the traditional high school diploma and transcript to communicate students' new and different sets of knowledge and skills to employers. A career passport may be characterized as a formal product or document in which students present the many marketable skills they have developed through their life…

This book establishes a framework that can be used to evaluate software for tracking and analyzing student records. First, it examines the characteristics the user should look for in a student-records management software package. Users should be aware of the dangers and costs of replacing a system or integrating new software into an existing…

Classroom assessment measures, in the past often limited to multiple-choice and standardized tests, now can involve the creation of portfolios, or collections of pieces of work which the student selects as the best representation of his or her efforts, progress, skills, and accomplishments. Portfolios also usually include teacher evaluations and…

The most obvious and difficult problem facing educators of migrant children is that of frequent interruptions in the child's education caused by his migration. Various solutions have been put forth over the past three decades; these have included providing mobile schools and staff, residential schools, uniform record transfers, interstate credit…