Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) serves the 21 counties of rural northeastern North Carolina. In Fall 2000 ECSU administrators met with educators in area school districts to discuss their professional development needs. This paper reports on those expressed needs relevant to mathematics education and discusses ways to help achieve excellence…

Studies in Canada have shown that between 16 percent and 38 percent of Canadians are illiterate or have low literacy skills and, therefore, have difficulties in accessing and using medical care and medical information. They have also found a contributory connection between low literacy and poor health and over-use or inappropriate use of health…

This document provides supplementary information to accompany the Foundation for Child Development--supported book "America's Child Care Problem: The Way Out," published by St. Martin's Press (2002), which provides an in-depth look at the child care industry, identifying crucial problems such as the quality of care. Presented in five…

A study was conducted to assess the extent to which lifelong learning strategies are being implemented in vocational education and training (VET) in the Netherlands. Lifelong learning was examined from these three perspectives: (1) the policy formation process of lifelong learning, including developing policy instruments and specific measures by…

Agriculture is the second most common employer of youth and is associated with numerous occupational hazards, but few preventive efforts to protect adolescent farmworkers have been implemented or evaluated. The largest group of adolescent farmworkers is youth who live away from their natural families and migrate, mostly from Mexico, to work in…

A study examined the feasibility of marketing a national model of alternative special education teacher certification/licensure, the extent of program need, and the types of content and processes that such a program should have. A telephone survey of State Improvement Grant Directors or their equivalents in 14 states indicated that most states had…

This English-Spanish language booklet is designed to help parents understand two important features of special education services, accommodations and modifications for students with disabilities. Examples of accommodations and modifications are provided, federal laws requiring schools to provide accommodations and modifications are cited, and…

Based on the view that social and emotional learning (SEL) needs to be an integral part of middle school education, this book provides an overview to social and emotional learning and the development of middle school students, presents a representative range of SEL programs and perspectives, and offers reflections on the current status of SEL and…

A central component of the Children Act 1989 in Great Britain is sponsored care, the purchase by local authorities of places for individual children in voluntary and private day care facilities. The book details a study examining how private and voluntary day care services such as childminders, preschools, and day nurseries are used by local…

This study offers a broad view of community college students who enter college underprepared for the rigors of credit-bearing coursework. The dissertation employed Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis' theories and practices of portraiture as a mode of qualitative inquiry. The study examined the lives of four reading and writing students who placed into…

A study was conducted to review the concept of validity in the context of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia. The study included a review of literature, case studies, presentation of key findings, and recommendation of a tool to guide assessors. An eight-faceted approach to validity, based on Nitko, was developed, with each…

Proprietary and career schools have long provided postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) as private, for-profit institutions. In recent years, they have been joined at the secondary level by charter schools providing CTE. These issues affect proprietary, career, and charter schools as providers of secondary or postsecondary CTE: the…

On February 3, 2003, the Bush Administration unveiled its request to cut funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program by 40 percent in fiscal year 2004. This date also marked the administration's release of When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Learning Centers Program, First Year Findings, the…

Parks, libraries, museums and other cultural organizations represent a diverse array of assets and share a broad mission to serve their communities, however, some may not realize the roles that these institutions can and do play in supporting young people during out-of-school time hours. This issue of the "Out-of-School Time Policy Commentary"…

This study addresses the issue of how new forms of work organization (NFWO) are affecting job skill requirements. Practices such as job rotation, problem-solving teams and self-directed workgroups are thought to increase job skill requirements because they tend to broaden job responsibilities. The study uses the 1999 and 2000 waves of the…