This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of North Carolina's annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. In year 4, North…

The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Tennessee's annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. Given that Delaware and…

For more than two decades, the enrollment funnel has shaped how enrollment managers planned their enrollment strategies. It was a reliable, effective model for enrollment behavior, and campuses could shape their strategies around it. In recent years, however, demographic changes as well as technological advances have rendered the traditional…

School effects on students' achievement are relatively small. Another approach, in which students' growth trajectories are the focal point of interest, is able to demonstrate more sizeable school effects. This approach is applied in a study into school compositional effects. The rationale of this study is that in Dutch primary education such…

Productivity in academic degrees granted by American colleges and universities is declining. While there is some evidence this is caused by an uncontrollable "cost disease," we examine two additional explanations. First, few popular programs and strategies in higher education are cost-effective, and those that are may be underutilized. Second, a…

An inexpensive and easily implemented device to measure wind velocity is proposed. This prototype has the advantage of being able to measure both the speed and the direction of the wind in two dimensions. The device utilizes a computational interface commonly referred to as a "mouse." The mouse proposed for this prototype contains an…

The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) funds schools located on 63 reservations in 23 states across the nation. Of the 183 schools, 59 are Bureau operated and 124 are tribally controlled. One-hundred and sixteen schools provide instructional programs, 55 provide instructional as well as boarding services and 12 peripheral dormitories provide only…

Schools and school systems throughout the nation are increasingly experimenting with using various instructional technologies to improve productivity and decrease costs, but evidence on both the effectiveness and the costs of education technology is limited. A recent report published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute sets out to describe "the…

Literacy for Life is the second report from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey. It presents additional results on the nature and magnitude of the literacy gaps faced by OECD countries and how these gaps have evolved over the medium term. It offers new insights into the factors that influence the formation of adult skills in various…

The overall aim of this article is to analyze the relationships between the roles of assessment in pedagogy, the interactions between curriculum assessment and pedagogy, and the study of pupils' progression in learning. It is argued that well-grounded evidence of pupils' progressions in learning is crucial to the work of teachers, so that a method…

This article chronicles the evolution of a large research extensive institution's General Education writing assessment efforts from an initial summative focus to a formative, improvement focus. The methods of assessment, which changed as the assessment purpose evolved, are described. As more data were collected, the measurement tool was…

More than 200 colleges and universities call themselves Catholic. This affiliation contains surprising variability in its organizational and cultural manifestations, as well as its adherence to Church teachings and practices. Prospective students, parents, alumni, benefactors, accrediting agencies, and Church leaders all have an interest in…

The capability of organizations to operate on the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework is reliant on ITIL process measurements. Appropriate ITIL process measurements help ensure desired outcomes, enable corrective actions to take place prior to process failure, and direct process activities towards continuous improvement.…

As a new extension of individual quality-of-life (QOL) framework that has been widely embraced in the field of disability to affect policy making, guide service delivery, and enhance outcomes of individuals with disabilities, family quality of life (FQoL) has been increasingly recognized as an important concept in the area of family supports for…

This article summarizes critical evaluation needs, challenges, and lessons learned in translational research. Evaluation can play a key role in enhancing successful application of research-based programs and tools as well as informing program refinement and future research. Discussion centers on what is unique about evaluating programs and…