Everyone admires entrepreneurs, and every region aspires to become entrepreneurial. Whether community colleges should teach entrepreneurship today--or support entrepreneurs--is a non-issue. Colleges want students, graduates, faculty, and administrators to be entrepreneurial. Other countries marvel at, and work to emulate, America's entrepreneurial…

Despite assessment being viewed as integral to practice, there are questions about schools' preparedness to engage in this process. Data from three studies conducted in New Zealand primary schools explore whether use of student achievement data is part of the professional canon or skill set. (1) When implementing new literacy materials, evidence…

This study explores the contribution that can be made by self and peer assessment to effective teaching and learning. The purpose of this research was to introduce an intervention to a group of students, many of whom had non-traditional academic backgrounds, with the intention that it might enhance their academic skills and lead to more effective…

Across the country, educators in schools that have not met their targets for improved student learning are considering next steps. As a first step, a school improvement plan that is grounded in data and based on a comprehensive needs assessment can provide a framework for effecting change for a school's programming, student support systems, and…

The Adolescent Literacy Collaboratory is one model for sharing literacy leadership responsibility at the secondary school level. With the help of computer technology (PCs), it brings teachers and literacy leaders from multiple departments and multiple schools together to learn from and with one another in overlapping professional learning…

This study produced by the Eurydice network gives a detailed picture of the context and organisation of national tests in 30 European countries and the use made of test results in informing education policy and practice and in guiding the school career of pupils. It presents the diverse choices made by European countries regarding the objectives,…

This article presents a model that instructional leaders can use to engage in a change process that fosters effective instructional change in school districts and individual school buildings, specifically middle schools and alternative middle schools. The authors describe four dimensions of leadership and explain how each dimension informs…

Biology in Context ("bik") is a project that aims to improve biology teaching in lower secondary schools in Germany. Based on a theoretical framework derived from the National Educational Standards, four competence areas should be fostered in biology education: subject knowledge; inquiry acquisition; subject-related communication; and…

This article describes how two instructors used assessment data to improve an undergraduate course, Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom. This entailed revising the core assignment for the course--the creation of a thematic unit of instruction--and developing a scoring guide to assess teacher candidates' performance. Data collected…

The long-term concern relative to education inequity indicates that the nation's youth will not be adequately prepared for the global and highly competitive marketplace of the 21st century (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006). Initiatives to address this concern persist, including the creation of the virtual charter school (Vanourek, 2006;…

This study evaluated the influence of general and mathematics-specific classroom instructional quality on the mathematical development of a sample of Head Start preschool children. It also examined whether children's age, pre-test mathematical knowledge, and English language learner status influenced the quality of their curricular…

Formative assessment has recently become a focus of renewed research as state and federal policy-makers realize that summative assessments have reached a point of diminishing returns as a tool for increasing student achievement. Consequently, supporters of large-scale testing programs are now beginning to consider the potential of formative…

The purpose of this study was to develop a model for evaluating a professional development school program to enact an evidence-based model for a continuous cycle of program improvement. Guided by the logic model for program evaluation, we developed three survey instruments based on the professional development school standards of the National…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of multi-drafting among college students according to demographic characteristics and measure its impact on students' achievements. Design/methodology/approach: The research was conducted in two stages. First, a preliminary research based on data from the Highlearn web-based content…

This issue of ETS Policy Notes briefly summarizes the results of the Adult Education Program Survey (AEPS) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by ETS. The results provide a comprehensive picture of federally supported adult education activities in the United States. This picture includes a description of adult education…