Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) is a program designed to educate U.S. beef producers on best management practices to ensure production of a safe, wholesome beef product and humane animal care. The program must be sufficiently nimble to rapidly incorporate the demands of an ever-changing food system. Animal Care Training, an online system…

Teacher retention has become a major issue facing policy makers as our nation's school-age population continues to grow while the teaching workforce continues to decline because of attrition and an aging workforce. Common reasons cited by teachers for leaving the profession can also be linked to burnout. This study examined burnout levels in a…

On October 29, 2010, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) released the following new regulation for higher education institutions as "Section 600.9(c) State authorization": "If an institution is offering postsecondary education through distance or correspondence education to students in a State in which it is not physically located or in which…

This study was conducted at the early stages of integrating LEED into the design process in which a clearer understanding of what sustainable and ecological design was about became evident through the duration of designing and building of two academic buildings on a university campus. In this case study, due to utilizing a grounded theory…

The certification of financial aid administrators has been debated for over 37 years. A job satisfaction survey conducted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA, 2008a) revealed that college and university administrators' perceptions of the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of the services provided by the…

As third-party certification has become a prominent governance mechanism, conflicting understandings of it have emerged. Proponents advance third-party certification as a technical and objective governance mechanism, while critics argue that politics and relations of power characterize it. We reject this dichotomization both in terms of how TPC is…

There are increasing demands and requirements in the coaching profession, and as a result, coaching education programs worldwide have seen an increase in overall participation. In addition, many schools and sport programs in the United States have begun to require a minimum standard of certification. This, in turn, has created sport-specific…

The development and consequences of licensure for counseling psychologists in Taiwan are presented to promote cross-cultural awareness surrounding issues in the counseling psychology profession. The national licensure statute for counseling psychologists in Taiwan was established by the Taiwanese Legislature in 2001. While the licensing system…

The practice of teaching a foreign language in primary schools in Italy was first officially provided for by a decree in 1985, but it was only in 1991 that the figure of the Foreign Language (FL) teacher was actually defined. The issue at that stage was how to select and train the prospective L2 teachers, and so in-service courses were organised…

This article describes the middle grades program at Georgia College's John H. Lounsbury College of Education, which educates and trains middle school teachers. It describes the school's field-based teacher preparation program in which a mentor leader guides the candidates. The middle grades education program is a two-year, field-intensive…

Special education and bilingual teachers are in high demand. Many teachers in these specialization areas enter the profession via alternative certification programs, expedited routes to teacher certification. There is little research focusing on the specific support needs of novice special education and bilingual teachers from these widely varying…

Existing research has shown an association between teachers' professional growth and student success. However, there is a lack of information on the mandated professional development linked to Wisconsin teacher licensure requirements. The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon of self-directed professional development and its impact…

For more than 20 years school choice programs have provided parents opportunities to send their children to public or private schools more suited to their needs. Choice and competition in education benefits students. Today, 21 states and Washington, D.C., have school choice programs serving more than one million students. Impressively, nine out of…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the educator's perception of the optimal professional development experience. Research studies have concluded that the biggest indicator to predict student achievement is teacher effectiveness (Aaronson, Barrow, & Sander, 2007; Marzano, 2003; Sanders & Horn, 1998; Wong 2001). Guskey…

Research has shown that "last hired, first fired" policies maximize the number of teachers subject to reductions in force by eliminating those teachers that are lowest on the pay scale first. Until now, advocates of effectiveness-based reduction-in-force (RIF) policies could only point to simulated policy exercises as evidence of the…