The measurement of institutional effectiveness involves a systematic comparison of organizational purpose and performance. For community colleges, organizational purpose can be defined in terms of providing access to education, realizing student achievement, promoting student development, or addressing social needs. If all four purposes are…

The evolution of California's school accountability program, its current status, and some future directions are discussed. Public recognition of the need for school improvement resulted in California's Hughes Hart Education Reform Act (SB 813) of 1983, leading to the development of the California accountability program. Program components include:…

This document presents an annotated list of resources on parent involvement and citizen participation in education. Articles, books, reports, studies, guidebooks, and manuals were reviewed. Materials which were considered most interesting, relevant, and useful were selected. Materials of special interest or value to parents are specially marked…

The Chicago Public Schools have recently been restructured by the Illinois General Assembly, radically altering patterns of governance (voice) and patterns of choice in Chicago. This paper analyzes the history of the Chicago restructuring campaign and the specific conception of school-based governance enacted into law. The paper also analyzes the…

The Mississippi Legislature's Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) identified administrative and programmatic weaknesses in the Department of Corrections' associate degree and adult basic education programs administered by Coahoma Junior College for inmates. Related to the associate degree program, Coahoma had…

The proposed Controlled Choice Student Assignment Plan for the Boston Public Schools guarantees equitable school desegregation by allowing parents and students to make multiple school selections by their own rank-order of preference that will be used to allocate school space in a racially proportional manner. The plan enhances the quality of…

To determine teachers' reasons for implementing cooperative learning, a study involving classroom observation, teacher interviews, and the use of the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SCQ) was undertaken. Subjects included eight elementary school teachers and seven secondary school teachers. Each teacher's class contained about 30 students. The…

This guidebook was developed to assist local school districts in Kentucky with the implementation of the program improvement section of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act, Chapter 1. The emphases of the reauthorization of Chapter 1 are accountability and program effectiveness. Each local district must now identify Chapter 1 schools…

The formation of hypotheses and generation of a theory to explain and predict the outcomes of educational reforms based on the concept of school reform cycles is the purpose of this paper. Two complementary hypotheses are proposed to explain the success or failure of educational reforms. The first hypothesis is based on an inverse relationship…

Information to assist local school communities in developing successful educational accountability programs is presented in this report. Based on local school district autonomy, educational accountability in Colorado is viewed as a school improvement process, with a focus on student achievement, graduation, and attendance. Information is presented…

To help vocational education administrators and practitioners, this paper presents a framework for vocational education program evaluation. Evaluation is defined as the act of rendering judgments to determine a program's value; two major types are formative and summative. Vocational education evaluation should take a broader and more comprehensive…

To provide services and instruction to students based upon identifiable needs, the Individual Student Profile (ISP) System (an automated database system, not yet implemented) was developed. ISP is designed to include three components: academic, health, and self-concept. These components were chosen to coincide with the three learning domains:…

The impact of institutional efforts to validate Basic Educational Opportunity Grant applications was assessed during 1978-1979. Attention was directed to: detecting possible underpayment and overpayment to Basic Grant applicants due to inaccurate reporting; assessing the adequacy of the pre-established criteria for detecting possible misreporting;…

Intended as a conceptual framework within which to analyze accountability and governance, this paper by a joint task force of the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges and the California Community College Trustees offers a model for establishing a new system of accountability for the colleges. Part I presents a statement on…

This paper examines long-range problems caused by test-controlled schooling. It looks at the demands of both curricular and accountability uses of tests from the point of view of the urban school district's testing office. On the basis of interviews with 12 New Orleans teachers and the experiences of the authors in working in two large city…