This paper overviews strategies employed by the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) to implement systemic reform in math, science, and technology education in rural Appalachia. ARSI is one of four Rural Systemic Initiative projects funded by the National Science Foundation to target regions characterized by low population density and high…

Many Scottish schools provide good personal support for their pupils. In primary schools, class teachers have played the key role while in special schools, teams of staff have worked together to promote the personal and social development of pupils. In secondary schools, an approach built around specialist guidance teachers was created some 30…

Today’s schools are complex systems with complex problems. Addressing those problems often requires significant change efforts. However, many school administrators don’t know how to select a focus for these efforts or how to lead staff through such changes--and even if they did, the job is too large for one person. One solution to this dilemma is…

Describes a system employed by a middle school to improve performance scores on the Comprehensive Testing of Basic Skills (CTBS), through aggressive attitude changes, to ensure fiscal and other benefits. Notes characteristics of the approach, including realistic goals, student involvement, student responsibility, community involvement, student…

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of alignment to national and state standards in public and private university educational leadership certification programs in the state of Florida. The standards used were the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A) and the Florida Principal Leadership Standard…

Harvard Family Research Project's Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Research and Evaluation Database and Bibliography provide accessible and timely information about research and evaluations involving OST programs and initiatives. This Research Update explores key themes emerging from 13 recent reports added to the OST Research and Evaluation…

Universities today need to become quicker on their toes. They must continually scan the environment and seize emerging opportunities--and institutional advancement must lead this effort. An unfortunate number of institutional advancement operations are ill equipped for the task at hand. Many suffer from high staff turnover and overly hierarchical…

The authors describe their experiences assessing writing-across-the-curriculum and general education programs, paying particular attention to processes and their consequences. At the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM), a relatively large research-extensive university, general education assessment activities have been designed around two goals:…

Undergraduate programs in business are expected to provide a comprehensive learning for their students in order to prepare them to be able to deal with complex business problems in their jobs. Business schools attempt to provide this learning through various curricular design strategies. This paper proposes the use of an undergraduate course in…

This paper presents the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness Subcommittee's fifth hearing in preparation for the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. The last time the Workforce Investment Act reauthorized was in 1998. The Workforce Investment Act was designed to streamline and coordinate job training programs. It…

Owing to national emphasis on accountability, teacher education programs are under close scrutiny by federal and state-level entities to justify their purpose and usefulness in preparing future teachers. Accrediting agencies have set high standards, which ask for systematic assessment of teacher education programs and their candidates. The purpose…

The need for capacity-building in teacher education in the UK has been raised as a serious issue by a number of commentators. Tensions about the place of research in teacher education have persisted for many decades, but following changes to the core funding mechanisms in the UK, the maintenance of education research bases within many universities…

The paper offers a retrospective evaluation of recent evaluative studies of bilingual programs in the Australian state of Victoria, in an attempt to determine how successfully the evaluation process met the dual criteria of external accountability and development. The programs in question were located in primary or secondary government schools and…

Using concepts from the evaluation literature, this case study describes the instrumental, conceptual, and political influence of the Head Start National Reporting System (NRS) and on-going child assessments in a local Head Start program. This study found that a local program intentionally aimed to limit the influence of the NRS. The NRS validated…

The authors tell about their heterogeneous 91 person research and evaluation unit at an operating foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. They focus on evaluation for program improvement, one of several purposes of studies they work on. The three authors write from their different manager positions within the unit. Included are the context of the…