Outlines the development of the New Hampshire Community Technical College System (NHCTCS), including its transfer program, noncredit continuing-education courses, and community services. States that under the current proactive leadership, NHCTCS is poised to expand and intensify its mission to provide economic and community development for all New…

Highlights specific questions, concerns, and challenges faced by educators, parents, and students concerning assessment, accountability, accommodations, and alternate assessment. Examples of state assessment-accommodation policies are provided and reasons for providing test accommodations, requirements of Individualized Education Programs,…

Explores issues of whose work is actually being evaluated when raters outside the classroom context make judgments about students based on work composed with the support of peers, teachers, and parents. Data from an evaluation of a statewide assessment and a study of scoring elementary school writing portfolios illustrate the issues. (SLD)

Describes the development, current status, and future goals and plans of library and information networks in Ohio. Highlights include OCLC; OhioLINK, incorporating state-assisted universities, two-year colleges, the state library, and private university libraries; a school library network; a public library information network; a telecommunications…

Presents an overview of past, present, and future activities involving automation and networking in Oklahoma libraries. Topics include a library technology network concerned with equitable library service; a union list of CD-ROM library holdings; telecommunications infrastructure; telephone charges and Internet access; upgrades of rural library…

The Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) is a staff development program created to stem school violence. Program components include summer institutes, site teams, ongoing technical assistance, interagency cooperation, program evaluation, information dissemination, and governance by the MBI council. MBI has expanded to include nearly 100 Montana…

This article identifies problems associated with excluding the scores of students with disabilities who need nonapproved accommodations and explores ways in which these scores can be included in system and student accountability systems. The need for Individualized Education Program teams to establish guidelines and establish a documentation…

A study that examined state Individualized Education Program (IEP) forms found that out of the 41 with IEP forms, only 5 specifically addressed educational standards on their forms. Thirty-one states addressed the general curriculum on their IEP forms and 30 states listed three or more options for assessment participation. (Contains nine…

The Freedom to Learn (FTL) program is a statewide initiative coordinated by the Michigan Department of Education and Ferris State University in Big Rapids. Now beginning its third year, the program targets underperforming middle schools in 100 of the state's 500 districts. More than 23,000 students and 1,500 teachers have been issued HP nx9010…

School districts, like many other societal groups, function as a system--a dynamically complex web of interaction in which each aspect of the district affects all other aspects. School districts have many outside forces to which they must respond, including state and federal mandates. These mandates impose top-down initiatives with little to no…

To complement the information gathered on middle school and high school literacy initiatives as reported in "Middle and High School Literacy across the Curriculum" (Task 1.2 Fast Response Project), the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast (REL-SE) staff conducted a scan of the six southeast states to gather the following information…

During the last few years, the development of seamless education systems to promote students' postsecondary success has been discussed by policymakers at the local, state and federal levels as well as reform-minded individuals. Florida, Washington, Iowa, Georgia and California either have statewide integrated systems or are moving quickly toward…

This paper presents the findings of the 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). This year, CCSSE zeroes in on high expectations and high support as it presents the results of its 2008 survey. Both are critical to student success: Students do best when expectations are high "and" they receive support that helps them…

This report summarizes the activities and findings of the external evaluation of the "Science: It's Elementary" (SIE) program in the period June 2007 through May 2008. The SIE program is managed by ASSET Inc. and overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. SIE is an initiative aimed at improving elementary science instruction…

The reason that the school dropout crisis is now referred to as a "silent epidemic" is because, when we weren't paying attention, the graduation rate in our country slipped to a level that threatens the very health and well-being of our society. Each year, almost one-third of all public high school students--and nearly one-half of all…