In this article, the author offers six best practices for physical and data security convergence. These are: (1) assess the cable plant; (2) choose wisely; (3) be patient; (4) engineer for high availability; (5) test the converged network to make sure it works; and (6) don't forget the humans.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills places an important emphasis on fundamental social science subjects including history, geography, government and civics, and economics as well as a stress on other important subjects such as English, foreign languages, arts, and science in the school curriculum. It has also identified what it calls 21st…

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights collects, through its network of observation points, information on discrimination and good practice in the areas of legislation, employment, housing, racist violence, and education. Data on education includes information on: access to education for vulnerable groups, discriminatory practices,…

E-learning is an increasingly popular form of education for college students (Allen & Seaman, 2007). There are a number of best practices for teaching online courses (Lewis & Abdul-Hamid, 2006) which should be followed by leadership educators. In addition, for a wide variety of reasons, women comprise a significant portion of the distance…

Schools today have transcended from the chalkboard to the whiteboard and are populated by students who are not frightened to use the technology of this new age of learning. During this period of dynamic change, teachers must be ready to meet the challenges of preparing students for a global society characterized by diversity and ever-increasing…

Recent trends have shown increasing privatization of standardization activities under various corporations, trade associations, and consortia, raising significant public policy issues about how the public interest may be represented. This book establishes a framework of analysis for public policy discussion and debate. Discussing topics such as…

The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement undertook an examination of schools and districts in which thoughtful and well-articulated use of federal, state, and local funds has resulted in innovative and effective reform that can be replicated or adapted in other, similar sites. They reviewed research on district improvement…

Advanced Placement (AP), which enables high school students to take introductory college-level courses, is the nation's oldest example of a rigorous, common curriculum. Students who score well on AP exams are more likely to persist in college and earn a degree. The Advanced Placement Expansion project of the National Governors Association Center…

This report offers information and advice to assist all levels of government in its work to establish evidence-based policies, programs, and practices across the life cycle of disasters. This report provides examples of effective community efforts with respect to people with disabilities, and evaluates many emergency preparedness, disaster relief,…

This report presents research findings and action steps drawn from policies and practices that have been shown to be critical to the success of educational reforms at the local, district and state levels. The report focuses specifically on recommendations that address the following topics: (1) Coordinating state, city and district policies; (2)…

For a century, school reform has been a topic of local and federal government efforts. While the reforms have evolved and changed to a small degree during this time, the deficit focus of reform has been consistent, failing schools and failing systems. Education's focus on the deficits within the system has yielded reform that has yet to succeed in…

Recently engineering has emerged on the K-12 scene as a potentially important content area. However, K-12 teachers typically lack sufficient backgrounds to effectively integrate engineering into their classrooms. Thus teacher professional development is of critical importance. Although there have been several initiatives emerge to assist teachers…

This guide aims to help education policy leaders develop effective policy in support of good teaching and learning. It provides tools and resources that help policy leaders to: (1) Look back at the research on strategies and practices that have been proven to bring about results for the greatest number of students; (2) Look around in order to…

This paper reports on the social learning from a project aimed to increase the knowledge and capacity of a group of farmers in Tasmania, Australia, to reduce the impacts of intensive agriculture on soil health and waterways, and to optimise the efficient use of on-farm inputs. The plan-do-check-review cycle adopted in this project required the…

Research on the language development of internationally adopted children has increased substantially in the past few years, with a variety of methods used to measure language abilities in this population, including parent and teacher reports, norm-referenced tests, conversational and narrative language samples, and other procedures. These…