This document reports on a study of New Zealand's Special Education 2000 (SE2000) policy with emphasis on issues of particular importance to the Maori minority group. Methodology included interviews with key national organizations including Maori organizations and key informants in the field. An executive summary summarizes findings concerning…

In response to Committee requests from the U.S. House of Representatives, the Government Accounting Office examined the extent to which children in Medicaid are receiving Early and Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) services. State efforts to improve service delivery and federal government efforts to ensure that state Medicaid…

This brief focuses on the role of fathers in contributing to children's well-being. The brief notes that collecting better data on fathers is vital to federal and state efforts to reform the welfare and child support systems and that understanding fathers' roles in their children's lives could help parents and social service providers better…

With accurate information, educators are better able to make effective decisions. Besides being used to assess student performance, a complete program of data collection and use can also show educators how management skills, individual learning styles, and other elements affect student achievement. This digest in Spanish provides an overview of…

This guide provides an outline of the components necessary in a written evaluation plan for vocational education programs. The four components that a plan for evaluation should include are described. The first component, the specific goals of the evaluation process, is divided into these two sections determined by the type of evaluation conducted:…

This topical review addresses performance goals and indicators for special education, including how to create valid and measurable indicators of key features of special education that can be used to gauge effectiveness as well as target improvement strategies. A section identifying highlights of the review notes that an indicator system consists…

This issue of "Network News" takes a look at emerging P-16/K-16 partnerships and data systems. The first article, "P-16 Data and Accountability Systems," by Hans L'Orange and Rick Voorhees (an adaptation of a policy brief) looks at data being used for accountability within P-16 systems and provides some general characteristics…

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) offers its own school district data in four areas: enrollment growth; seat capacity; school construction costs; and land acquisition. Also included are data on new school construction, property condemnations, and modernization projects over the past two decades. Appendices provide data on LAUSD…

This report describes the methods and procedures used for the field test of the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study First Followup 1996-98 (BPS:96/98). Students in this survey were first interviewed during 1995 as part of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study 1996 field test. The BPS:96/98 full-scale student sample includes…

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort 2000 (ECLS-B) is a study that will assess children's health status and their growth and development in domains that are critical for later school readiness and academic achievement. This paper is one of several that have been prepared in support of ECLS-B design efforts. It is anticipated that…

The Common Core of Data (CCD) program of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) consists of five separate surveys. An evaluation was conducted of the nonfiscal surveys from the CCD for 1996-97. It focused primarily on the agency and school universe surveys, but it also included the state nonfiscal survey. The evaluation explored such…

This report discusses the possibility of expanding the resource and finance data to be collected as part of the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The proposal under consideration, which is being field tested in the fall of 1998 and winter of 1999, has two major components. The…

Using a construction building analogy, this guide provides a plan for building a system of behavior strategies. These strategies are designed to assist behavior analysts of contracted provider agencies in the construction and maintenance of procedures which will help monitor and reduce the frequency of problematic behaviors in individuals with…

Standard setting, when carefully done, can be an expensive and time-consuming process. The modified Angoff method and the benchmark method, as utilized in this study, employ representative panels of judges to provide recommended passing scores to standard setting decision-makers. It has been considered preferable to have the judges meet in a…

This collection of papers is the result of a project by the Institute for Higher Education Policy designed to explore the public policy aspects of higher education cost measurement (expenditure analysis). Papers come from a 1-day seminar in 1999 that brought together individuals knowledgeable about cost measurement with institutional leaders and…