Understanding the potential or need for ICT support in education within developing countries, requires an in-depth needs assessment to comprehend, elaborate and set the desired priorities of rural schools. A Needs Assessment was conducted as part of an on-going comprehensive evaluation process of an ICT for development project, the Siyakhula…

The "PISA 2009 Technical Report" describes the methodology underlying the PISA 2009 survey. It examines additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. The reader will find a wealth of information on the test and sample design,…

Education leaders across the country confront a growing challenge: too many students are not college ready when they leave high school. Although indicators exist to identify students at risk of dropping out of high school, few indicators of students' college readiness are currently in place, and few districts have linked indicators to practices…

The Learning Together longitudinal study focuses on four counties' efforts to expand bachelor's degree opportunities in early care and education (ECE) for adults currently working in the field. The "student cohort" model--in which small groups of ECE students with similar interests and characteristics pursue a bachelor's degree together,…

Challenging behaviours in young children impact upon schools and families and can lead to more serious challenges in adolescence and adulthood. In the last decade, there has been an increasing trend towards the development of early intervention and prevention programs that serve to draw on child competencies to ameliorate some of the factors that…

This publication provides an overview of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), including programs, initiatives, research projects, publications, and strategic partnerships. It also provides tips for developing competitive grant applications and staff contacts for each program for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2008. Once grant…

As post-Taliban Afghanistan moves toward the establishment of a viable educational system, key stakeholders and donors are faced with the formidable challenge of how to most rapidly implement teacher training within an environment of diverse, changing, and largely unassessed training needs. The current article explores the dilemmas inherent in…

Community colleges operate under much scrutiny these days, and these institutions have experienced a growing emphasis on performance indicators as paths to institutional accountability. California's system of 109 community colleges recently developed and implemented an innovative accountability program that used peer group comparison as one of its…

This article discusses the origins, goals, and ongoing development of a high-school-based archival program, emphasizing the critical role of school-university collaboration in facilitating the program's success. The Hunterdon Central Regional High School Archives has initiated programs to collect and document institutional history, highlighted by…

Designers of technology-based instruction wrestle with the possibility that their product will seem cold or mechanical to the user. Given the current understanding of learning as a social process, it is no longer reasonable to restrict the learner's participation in the process of instruction to trivial interactions. We believe that designs will…

The concept of quality of life (QOL) is increasingly being used in the field of intellectual disabilities as a conceptual and measurement framework for program planning and evaluation. This article describes the development of a QOL conceptual and measurement framework, and summarizes how this framework is currently being used both nationally and…

A review of donors' most recent policies highlights that the term "partnership" is firmly embedded in the lexicon of international development. Most donors now only fund INGO programmes if they are partnering LNGOs. This article considers key questions in relation to such programmes: What is meant by an education partnership? Are there…

Teaching artists know that there are many more students who could benefit from learning in and through the arts, but school budgets as well as teaching artists' time and energy are limited. As years pass, teaching artists face the reality that they will reach only a fraction of the students in need. To extend their impact dramatically, some…

Public and school libraries often allow high school students to serve as volunteers out of their own interest, to fulfill community service requirements for graduation or for court-ordered obligations. Community college libraries often rely on college students on work-study but starting a high-school-age volunteer program would create a bridge to…

Times are exciting for adolescent literacy research! Researchers are examining adolescents' reading and writing like never before. This department, Research Connections, spotlights scholarly efforts aimed at improving classroom literacy instruction for adolescent learners. It takes a broad, disciplined-inquiry view of research, embracing…