In this article, I present a framework that can be used in our work with special groups of gifted students--one that recognizes the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), racism, and other limiting factors on educational achievement and provides a blueprint for interventions. This framework stems from Urie Bronfrenbrenner's ecological theory of…

The Illinois Community College Board provided more than $3.3 million to community colleges during fiscal year 2007 to provide workforce and economic development services through their Business and Industry Centers. The workforce development activities conducted under this grant include customized job training on campus or on-site at a business;…

Creating and evaluating Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities is a major responsibility for teachers and school leaders, yet the process involves legal components not always understood by educators. In "Understanding, Developing, and Writing Effective IEPs," legal and special education experts Roger…

The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) was assigned the task of summarizing and analyzing the data for Indicator 2--Dropout--from the 2005-06 Annual Performance Reports (APRs) and the revised State Performance Plans (SPPs), which were submitted to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in February…

The nation's social agenda for improving education and training has converged with national economic forces (Hornbeck & Salamon, 1991). The emphasis on lifelong learning of the workforce through education, training and development, demands for ever-improving productivity and significant technological advancements have required new tools to…

This training module is part of a series that provides a basic introduction to using assistive technology with young children (ages 2 to 7) who have severe disabilities in more than one area of development. This module focuses on technology that gives children another way to communicate when speaking is difficult or impossible. The module presents…

The principal aim of Australia's Distance Learning for Inservice Teacher Education (DLITE) Project has been to develop a proposal and knowledge base for the development of a cooperative national policy for the application of distance learning to inservice teacher education in Australia. This report provides background information on the state of…

This paper describes Project MILE (Moline Improvement in Literacy Education), a school/university partnership program between the University of Northern Iowa and Moline (Iowa) Public School District #40. The project called for a long-term collaborative effort in order to develop a complex and sophisticated level of university involvement with a…

This paper begins with an overview of the population of adolescents and young adults with deafness. More detailed information is then provided on the characteristics of lower achieving deaf persons and those with multiple disabling conditions. School-to-community transition experiences of these groups are then discussed, with special focus on the…

The retrospective report summarizes results and recommendations resulting from the Oregon Community Foundation's Student Mentoring Program (SMP), which brought together college students from four private universities and a number of eighth grade students from four middle schools in mentoring relationships. The students were originally defined as…

The partial immersion program at Key Elementary School (Arlington, Virginia), where half the day is taught in English and half in Spanish, continued to be successful in its eighth year. Reasons for success include: dedication and in-depth understanding of immersion philosophy among principal, coordinator, teachers, and staff; innovations in both…

This final report describes a pilot project, "Quality Service Provision for Infants and Young Children with Deaf-Blindness: A Mechanism for State Intervention Teams," developed and implemented at the University of Southern Mississippi. The project developed a model of an intervention team that provides intensive training and technical…

This book is designed to help postsecondary education personnel initiate or refine college programs for students with learning disabilities (LD). Following an introductory chapter, chapters 2-3 discuss the need for such postsecondary programs and presents an overview of federal legislation designed to ensure educational opportunities for students…

The College of Education of Ohio University has developed a number of partnerships with public schools in southeastern Ohio. The partnerships described share at least six common threads: (1) a beginning in informal conversation; (2) a shared set of goals; (3) an early focus on preservice teacher preparation; (4) a gradual expansion towards…

This manual presents 15 Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) tools and techniques necessary for effective teaching. By using the tools and techniques of CQI, teachers will be able to help themselves and their students to focus on the classroom processes. This will permit the teacher and students to plan, organize, implement, and make decisions…