This paper presents Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now's (ConnCAN's) annual report for 2008. The pages of this report are filled with the "Faces of Change" in Connecticut education. These students, teachers, principals, community leaders, and parents are working in their own ways to fix Connecticut's public schools. Over the past…

The practices and perceptions of Wisconsin employers regarding welfare recipients were examined. First, 500 employers outside the Milwaukee metropolitan area were interviewed by telephone. Those data were merged with data from a survey of Milwaukee-area employers, resulting in a statewide sample of about 1,250 Wisconsin employers (25%, 35%, and…

This handbook is intended to help Missouri school districts develop and implement quality family and consumer sciences programs that will prepare students of all ages to be critical, ethical thinkers and successful family, career, and community leaders. The handbook begins with a bibliography listing 27 resources. The following are among the…

Since mid-1999, a bold initiative has been underway in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, to improve the well-being of the youngest members of the greater Cleveland community. A community-wide initiative targeting children from birth through age five and their families was launched in July 1999, and in the following 5 years demonstrated substantial success…

Young people deserve to grow and thrive in good times and bad, in poverty and prosperity, in war and peace. Yet children still suffer from hunger, poverty, and maltreatment, even in a country as rich as the United States. This paper provides a historical background of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the kinds and nature of the…

In 1987, Congress directed each of the regional educational laboratories to develop a "rural initiative." Beginning in 1991, the U.S. Department of Education directed that the laboratories devote 25% of their effort to helping rural schools by fostering innovative rural education programs that promise to improve instruction, and by…

This paper discusses how strengthening connections between the school and its community can help to improve a school's problem solving capacity. The paper is based on data collected by the Documentation and Technical Assistance Project of the Center for New Schools (Chicago, Illinois), from observation of nine school sites which were involved in…

This paper describes experiences of the Documentation and Technical Assistance Project (Chicago, Illinois) in helping schools to improve their problem solving capacities through the use of cognitive frameworks (shared meanings that people use to interpret their world). The paper discusses two projects that illustrate how shared frameworks have…

The contributions that business and industry can make to help colleges and universities maintain high standards of teaching, scholarship, and research are considered. Four recent studies that address the deterioration in educational standards are noted, and the problems that confront colleges and universities are identified. It is suggested that…

The impact of the School Improvement Through Instructional Process (SITIP) program in Maryland schools was studied. The program encouraged application of research on planned change to implement one or more of four instructional models: Active Teaching, Mastery Learning, Student Team Learning, and Teaching Variables of "content" and…

Based on interviews of 68 key administrators, a survey questionnaire given to 345 principals and districtwide administrators, and a shortened questionnaire given to 177 teachers in 68 New Jersey and Pennsylvania school districts in 1981, this study examines how educators seek assistance to strengthen educational programs and promote change.…

Views of academic deans at 15 private Minnesota colleges concerning assessment were surveyed. About half of the colleges experienced some but not great pressure for assessment from their external environment while the remaining had felt essentially no pressure. The deans identified obstacles to assessment, including fears about possible intrusion…

In Spring 1983, 124 second semester freshmen at the University of Maryland at College Park whose first semester grade point averages were below minimum requirements for graduation participated in a diagnostic and prescriptive interview program. Participants met with a counseling center staff person to help students first to identify the causes of…

A national sample of public school districts was surveyed to determine high school graduation requirements existing in the 1981-82 and 1984-85 school years. Expectations for 1987-88 were also surveyed. The Office of Educational Research and Improvement's Center for Statistics conducted the survey through its Fast Response Survey System. School…

A model is presented for preparing teachers as "artists of the classroom" in centers referred to as "institutes of the teaching arts." In the model, the development of four fundamental qualities in all preservice students of the teaching arts are stressed: (1) a pridefully creative outlook on the work of teaching; (2) an understanding of the…