Designed to assist individuals who need to bring information to citizen groups or decision makers concerned with community economic development, this manual uses a question-answer format to cover topics that might occur to someone just starting to build an understanding of community economic analysis. Among topics covered are: strategies for…

This study explores the characteristics of women and minority artists in 1980 in relation to the U.S. total artist population, other professional workers, and the total work force. Census data for 1980 are used to depict basic demographic characteristics of women and minority artists and to assess their relative economic status in terms of…

This report describes a method to estimate the number of migrant and seasonal farmworkers present in a prescribed area during crop harvest, and to pinpoint areas of high need for health and social services. The collection of health clinic and federal program data on migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Florida, northwestern Ohio, and Maryland's…

This report examines federal, state, and local databases containing information on migrant workers and their children, identifies their common characteristics, and assesses their potential utility to inform educational policy analysis. General criteria used to evaluate each database's strengths and weaknesses include standardization, reliability,…

As a means of investigating the current status of citizenship education in the schools, this exploratory study was designed to study graduating high school seniors' perceptions of their citizenship experiences. A questionnaire was distributed to four schools in Texas, Minnesota, California, and Arkansas and data were analyzed using Boos's…

The Collaboration for the Improvement of Teacher Education (CITE) Project, now beginning its third year, consists of a blocked semester of three courses--curriculum and methods, social aspects of teaching, and measurement and evaluation--and the related field experience activities occurring at the pre-student teaching level. Approximately 120…

This learning module provides students with practice in applying mathematical operations to vocational agriculture. The module consists of unit objectives, definitions, information, problems to solve, worksheets suitable for various levels of vocational agriculture instruction, and answer keys for the problems and worksheets. This module, which…

Recent federal court rulings concerning the burden-of-proof standards for complex employment discrimination cases involving the use of statistics have brightened the prospects for faculty plaintiffs in sex discrimination cases. The cases deal with salary differentials and race, promotions, and seniority. (MSE)

Describes an activity for determining how long and when a tree lived by comparing its ring sizes with local precipitation records. Suggests benefits for this type of dendrochronology activity. (TW)

Identifies situations in which there is disparity between coefficients calculated from aggregate versus individual level data. Determines the magnitudes of these discrepancies, and discusses the implications for test score reporting and policy decisions based in whole or in part on the aggregate level relationships and discrepancies identified.…

In March 1996, the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) proposed to evaluate the Chicago Annenberg Challenge's (CAC) newly funded reform efforts in the Chicago public schools. The evaluation aimed to understand how schools involved in CAC efforts developed as organizations and, in turn, how these developments benefited students. The study…

This report discusses the outcomes of a study that investigated the relationship between student scores on the five sub-scales of the School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised (SAAS-R) and the academic achievement of known groups of gifted achievers and gifted underachievers. The study examined whether gifted achievers and gifted underachievers…

This report describes a national telephone survey of randomly selected middle and high school principals to measure the impact of school-uniform dress codes on perceived level of school violence. In addition to measuring the impact of school uniforms on principals' perception of violence, selected variables such as region, gender, and educational…

This study aimed to describe, compare, and analyze the use of specific types of data utilized in decision-making by administrators of more and less effective community colleges. The study utilized a modified version of Kim Cameron's "Assessment of Organizational Effectiveness on Higher Education" to measure and rank community college…

The results from high-stakes assessments have often been used to merely grade and rank schools and students. But a new trend is emerging, according to this brief. Educators are beginning to see the power of using assessment data to improve instruction. This brief discusses ways to use data to improve instruction at the school, classroom, and…