A study was conducted to provide a better understanding of the nature and the operation of the institutions in which exemplary vocational education programs exist. The study employed an interpretive ethnographic design that sought meaning and understanding from within the context of the setting. Twenty-five institutions offering exemplary…

The technical reports and working papers published by the Center for Children and Technology that are listed in this guide focus on educational technology and its relationship to student learning and school restructuring. Technical reports share research results, describe prototype designs, and address issues crucial to the Center's research…

Results from an ethnographic study reveal the meanings and social actions of teachers and administrators that were used to support a teachers' theory of empowerment. This practitioner's model offers a definition, principles, and behaviors that reflect teacher empowerment as it occurs in the school. Implications of this model for building…

This report is a descriptive summary of preliminary findings from the second year of research in 16 secondary schools in California and Michigan conducted by the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary Teaching (CRC). Further analyses of the data will proceed over the year and will be informed by comments of teachers, administrators, and…

In 1985 the Arizona Legislature established a 5-year pilot-test program for teachers, under the direction of the Joint Legislative Committee on Career Ladders. Its purpose was to implement and evaluate a process of rewarding teachers based on their actual performance levels, rather than solely on years of experience and/or accumulated college…

Massachusetts law enables the Board of Education to award grants to school committees for school-based comprehensive health education and human services programs, including the following components: comprehensive health education curriculum, school counseling and psychological services, school health services, coordination of school and community…

School reform efforts today have a personal focus that emphasizes attending to the problems faced by individual at-risk students. After outlining the impact of student dropouts, this document uses information from a review of 150 at-risk student programs described in related professional literature to describe six basic weaknesses in current…

Scheduling concerns such as how to keep instructors teaching in the areas for which they are qualified and how to allow for elective offerings in a student's schedule led North Cache Middle School, a year-round education school serving grades 8 and 9 in Richmond, Utah, to explore a number of solutions. Seven solutions are examined along with…

The document describes desirable practices for the education of gifted early adolescents in Virginia. It contains recommendations to assist in implementing a comprehensive plan for gifted middle-grade students compatible with state plans for overall middle school education. Research on students this age and on gifted students is cited to support…

This four-part guide is designed to help community college instructors understand and respond to individual differences in their students. First, the preface lays out a framework for an in-depth examination of individual learning differences by posing the following questions: (1) Is learning a single function or a composite of different types of…

This review summarizes and analyzes the body of research on the characteristics of effective schools in addition to early input-output research, which implied that the determinants of student achievement lay chiefly outside the control of the schools. Chapter 1 discusses patterns in the results of input-output studies, including research…

Fur trade settlements in North America were a fertile environment for cultural education. The fur trade became a network of closely linked social spheres in which individuals had to acquire competence in order to function and survive. The Hudson Bay Company's decision to plant permanent posts on the shores of the Hudson Bay put settlers and their…

A review of the existing literature on preparation of rural teaching personnel focuses on the problems of education and specifically, special education, in rural areas and reports various solutions to those problems. Characteristics of many rural areas (such as high non-enrollment rates, rising service costs, resistance to outside interference,…

To assist in local school improvement, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) has developed an approach in which teams of local educational leaders are made aware of the results of effective schooling research and are trained in the processes of change and improvement. Research reviews have shown specific elements of schooling at the…

School climate is defined, four instruments used to assess various dimensions of school climate are described, and implications of a school climate profile for developing an individualized staff development program in a rural school setting are discussed. Developed from the professional literature, the definition of school climate includes the…