South Carolina's School Incentive Reward Program Program (SIRP) based on year-to-year gains in reading and mathematics achievement, which seemed to have face validity, was evaluated, particularly its use of the relative gains of students in only the highest grade in the school as the basis for the awards. When this requirement was relaxed so that…

Educational revitalization is crucial for a nation facing a 20 percent functional illiteracy rate, as well as increasing foreign industrial challenges. Like America's auto manufacturers who returned to business basics and thus achieved a $10 billion reversal of fortunes in just 3 years, educators in a technical society must define their own…

Findings from a study of the viability of a sample of 51 institutions that received substantial federal funding are summarized. The institutions received funding through Title III of the Higher Education Act during the 1981-1982 academic year and the 5 prior academic years. Study objectives included the following: to determine general factors…

Three documents and eight journal articles on staff development (focusing particularly on inservice teacher education), selected from those recently made available through the ERIC system, are described briefly in this report. Topics covered by the items listed include enhancing teachers' perceptions of themselves, identifying workable staff…

A feasibility study was conducted to assess the level of interest by the Developer/Demonstrator (D/D) programs of the federally-supported National Diffusion Network in collaborating with Cleveland State University's College of Education in a program of professional development for educators in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Of the 100 D/D project…

Concepts set forth in this design represent the position of the State Department of Education and were developed in cooperation with lay and professional groups throughout Vermont. This statement of a working philosophy directs itself to the process of education with a main concern that an educational philosophy should center around and focus upon…

Three basic issues of day care licensing are dealt with in this paper. These are: (1) Should day care licensing be statutority separate from other child care licensing programs? (2) Where should day care licensing be administratively located? and (3) How much of the safeguarding and upgrading of service can licensing carry in relation to possibly…

The Excellence in Cities (EiC) policy was launched in 1999 with the aim of improving the attainment of all pupils in disadvantaged urban areas. Further Phases were launched in 2000 and 2001, by when EiC covered about a third of the secondary schools in England and over 60 per cent of the minority ethnic pupils in England attended schools in EiC…

Introduction: The results of a 2009-2010 program evaluation study that examined parents, teachers of students with visual impairments, administrators, and students regarding overall satisfaction with and effectiveness of the short-term programs at a residential school for students who are blind and visually impaired are described. The findings are…

This Annual Plan presents the major initiatives and priorities the U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) intends to undertake to assist the Department in fulfilling its responsibilities to America's taxpayers and students. The Department continues to face a significant number of challenges in FY 2014 that…

In 2003, with funding from The Wallace Foundation, a national team of researchers organized by Stanford University and The Finance Project set out to find and examine a set of exemplary pre- and in-service professional development programs for principals, along with the policy contexts in which they operate. The purpose of the study was to…

The purpose of this policy analysis was to examine the Missouri Public School Retirement System (PSRS). The team investigated the under-funding of PSRS, relating to sustainability and the feasibility of the system's use of one lever, contribution rate, to stabilize the retirement system, and to meet actuary needs and governmental requirements. The…

Early care and education can prepare children for school, but while some preschool and child care programs do an excellent job, others are inadequate and some may even harm healthy development. This study focuses on child care center directors to better understand why there is so much variation, and how public initiatives can better help…

This publication describes basic skills improvement programs and activities ongoing throughout the United States. The guide is organized into two sections. The first section contains program descriptions and hands-on materials from 25 elementary and secondary programs across the nation that have been selected for inclusion in the National…

This report recommends ways to integrate values education into schools' curricula. Societal problems indicate that values play as important a role in students' development as math and science, as suggested by statistics on increasing teenage suicide, pregnancies, and dropping out. While it is important to ensure that at-risk students become…