On August 17, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Pension Protection Act (PL 109-280). The 907-page federal law has been referred to as the most comprehensive reform of the nation's pension law since the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 (Lucas, 2008). This paper will examine the major…

Scope and method of study. This is a qualitative study about faculty engagement with their college's and university's assessment programs viewed through Etzioni's Compliance theory. Findings and conclusions. All three educational institutions visited were perceived as using normative power when viewed in relation to assessment. Two of the…

The five largest insular areas of the United States--American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands--receive federal funding through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), joint federal-state programs that finance health care for certain low-income…

This report responds to the legislative requirement of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L.110-246) to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Direct certification is a process conducted by the States and by local…

There are many different conceptions of teacher effectiveness, and defining it is complex and sometimes generates controversy. Teacher effectiveness is often defined as the ability to produce gains in student achievement scores. This prevailing concept of teacher effectiveness is far too narrow, and this guide presents an expanded view of what…

A considerable amount of time, effort, and other resources go into the development and implementation of education projects. Quite obviously, the goal is to create effective projects that can serve as models of excellence. Whether the project is an hour-long endangered species talk, a family festival, a severe weather awareness workshop, marine…

The purpose of this paper is to proffer a critical perspective about a specific brand of American schools within the larger charter school movement: the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP). KIPP is currently receiving wholesale acclaim as a radical alternative to public schooling "that works." While KIPP schools ostensibly claim that college…

In 2008, the Helen Macpherson Smith (HMS) Trust commissioned Victoria University to conduct an evaluation of the Mentoring and Capacity Building Initiative's Regional Coordination Projects (RCPs). The RCPs are founded on a model of community education and collaboration that aims to enhance cross-sectoral and whole-of-community approaches to…

In contrast to the long-standing history of assessment in secular higher education, religious institutions have not been at the cutting edge of assessment, evaluation, and research. However, external pressures on institutions have led to a self-examined life, use of reliable indicators of institutional performance, and development of comprehensive…

Conduct disorder (CD) is one of the most common childhood psychiatric disorders. Some research has focused on reducing conduct difficulties through parent training programmes. However, there has been limited research focusing on early intervention services that deal with emotional and/or conduct problems in a community setting. The aim of this…

Children classified as emotionally disturbed constitute a most challenging and expensive population in the public schools. This article presents a tri-part model of barriers to program design, implementation, and evaluation for children classified as emotionally disturbed in public school settings. An examination of the available school-based…

This article is based upon an online survey of 1182 teachers in 20 local authorities across Scotland. The aim of the survey was to ascertain the views of teachers on the Chartered Teacher scheme, which was introduced in Scotland in 2002. The questions asked teachers' views on the structure of the scheme, its success to date and what changes they…

Bridgewater State College is a comprehensive master's granting institution that primarily prepares teachers, school counselors, psychologists, and school administrators. Within the past two years, the institution has developed a new Graduate Research Assistantship position available to students enrolled in a master's degree or Certificate of…

As the pressure to win in select collegiate sports escalates, financial pressures mount, and the need to comply with Title IX regulations and gender equity policies continues, athletics administrators are faced with having to make difficult decisions regarding their sport programs. To assist in the decision-making process regarding sport programs,…

This study explores the possibility that any drug prevention program might be considered "evidence-based" given the use of data analysis procedures that optimize the chance of producing statistically significant results by reanalyzing data from a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program evaluation. The analysis produced a number of…