External quality assurance of universities exists to assure society that higher education standards are adequate and, in an increasingly global market, that they are comparable internationally. Although society has accepted an implicit compact in giving autonomy to universities in return for their dispassionate service to it, there has been an…

Now in its 29th year, The Industry Report is recognized as the training industry's most trusted source of data on budgets, staffing, and programs. This year, the study was conducted by an outside research firm in June-August 2010, when members from the "Training" magazine database were e-mailed an invitation to participate in an online…

This article investigates plausible explanations for the observed heterogeneity among jurisdictions in the exclusion rates of students with disabilities and English language learners in administrations of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It also examines the operating characteristics of a particular class of methods, called…

This chapter describes the system office for community college institutional research (SOCCIR) for the State of Florida. The Division of Florida Colleges has a long history of providing reports that contain information on issues of interest to both the individual members of the system and the public. Fact books have been produced by the office for…

The authors consider how the National Early Literacy Panel's decision to focus on identifying precursors to "conventional" literacy skills shaped the questions asked, conclusions drawn, and take-home message of the panel's 2008 report. They suggest that this approach may keep the field of literacy research from seeing and valuing other kinds of…

This article presents a report on expanded-time (ET) schools in America produced by the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Extracting and analyzing information from NCTL's database of 655 schools, this report describes trends emerging among these schools, including issues…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether instructional leadership functions, as defined in Hallinger's Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale, positively influence collective teacher efficacy to improve school achievement. Teachers from sample schools provided data for measures of collective teacher efficacy and instructional…

Background: Students' instructional experiences--that is, their experiences working with subject matter during classroom instruction--are a major determinant of how they learn. Given the importance of classroom instruction, valid, generalizable evidence is needed by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. Over the past two decades, a wealth…

This paper examines the report of the "Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy" (Department of Education, Science & Training (DEST) 2005) and explores the claims it makes about reading pedagogy and the centrality of particular "methods" or "approaches" to teaching backed by "scientific" evidence. Discourse…

This article provides an overview of the background and recent developments leading to the current reshaping of teacher education in Scotland, starting with the developments emanating in the past decade from the McCrone Report and finishing with the recent Donaldson Report, "Teaching Scotland's Future." It documents the key features of…

Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of the National Center for Education Statistics, this article describes data concerning educational expectations and use of school counselors for students enrolled in special education. Participants included students enrolled in special education from urban, suburban, and rural settings. Chi…

One issue universities face is the need to demonstrate excellence in postgraduate research supervision at the individual, faculty and university level. While poor supervision might become obvious over time, with grievances, withdrawals and poor completion times and rates, this paper focuses specifically on identifying and demonstrating supervisory…

This update reports the passing of Dr. Lane Murray, founding superintendent of the Windham School District in Texas and two time president of the Correctional Education Association. It also discusses the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). In hopes of informing deliberations aimed at the reauthorization of WIA, the prestigious…

Purpose: Although participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly viewed as an important complement to traditional investigator-driven research, relatively little PAR has taken place in which older adults have been prominent partners. This article provides a review of the literature on PAR in gerontology, highlighting key studies and their…

Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but one cannot tell that from the American Association of University Professors' new annual report on the economic status of the profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4% in 2008-2009, it says, a rate well above inflation. That would be good news, but…