Because federal law offers little guidance for continually-failing schools, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) conducted a study from August 2006 to January 2007 in Michigan to explore questions of what happens after restructuring, particularly to schools that continue to fail to meet achievement targets. Because it had an accountability system…

PBS TeacherLine, an initiative funded under the U.S. Department of Education's Ready To Teach program, is designed to provide high-quality online professional development for K-12 teachers. Through the first five-year grant cycle, ending in 2005, PBS TeacherLine produced approximately 100 online facilitated courses in reading, mathematics,…

To understand better the factors involved in students' decisions to pursue graduate study in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering (NSME), this study surveyed a stratified sample of 1,651 NSME majors who took the Graduate Record Examination General Test in December 1990, planning to enroll in graduate school. The survey asked for…

This report reviews five major international comparative studies on educational practices, assessment systems, and educational outcomes for students with disabilities. The five studies reviewed are: (1) the Reading Literacy Survey conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA); (2) the International…

One method for assessing teacher performance is the teacher portfolio. This is a collection of work produced by a teacher to highlight and demonstrate his or her knowledge and skills in teaching. A portfolio also provides a means for reflection and an opportunity to critique one's own work and evaluate one's own effectiveness as a teacher. Rather…

This paper presents a grounded theory of educational partnership process. A case-study design was used to describe aspects of the partnership process of the Cooperative Alliance for Gifted Education (CAGE) during part of its second year of operation. Three organizations served as partners: a large urban school district, a state university, and a…

A prototype simulation measure of the negotiating skill of interpersonal competence is described, and results of an initial validation study are reported. Of eight negotiating skills identified by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills of the U.S. Department of Labor, two were the focus of the measure: proposing and examining…

This booklet presents a collection of lessons and support materials for teaching critical and creative thinking developed by participants in the 1989-90 and 1990-91 staff development project of the Bexley, Ohio City schools. Following a list of project participants, an overview of the Instructional Options Program, and a brief review of Calvin…

In 1969, the College of Lake County (CLC) was founded in Grayslake, Illinois, as the result of a grassroots effort by area residents. To ensure employee input into decisions during the formative years, CLC established the All-College Senate (ACS), an employee forum featuring representatives from every employee group who met regularly to discuss…

The gap between researchers and teachers has minimized the impact that research should have on school development. Using teachers as researchers is one way of empowering them to adopt the perspective of the researcher. Research-oriented activity is then seen as one promising means of improving the teachers' pedagogical expertise. It is assumed…

This paper reviews four studies about the nature of professional thinking among teachers, and its relationship to parents' thinking about children and education. The main question addressed in the literature was when and why individual diversity of views appears more strongly in some individuals, but uniformity appears more strongly in others. The…

From a synthesis of findings culled from a study that examined partnerships of families and communities with middle schools at multiple sites, researchers derived eight "lessons" that can help foster understanding of the nature of family-school partnerships in the middle grades. Researchers also elaborated implications of these lessons,…

Formative, in-process evaluation results can be used to refine or "fine tune" Even Start programs. The assumption is that the programs have obtained comprehensive and appropriate empirical data on the assessment of the program as a whole as well as its specific goals. This six-step model uses evaluation data to improve program delivery.…

The purpose of this curriculum is to provide high school teachers and students with a conceptual framework for analyzing energy and environmental issues, especially in regards to economics. A second purpose of the curriculum is to provide teachers with a set of four motivating, interdisciplinary teaching units. The issues covered in the four…

A 67-item Assessment Practices Inventory (API) was administered to 311 inservice teachers. The application of principal components analysis to the data yielded a 6-factor solution that explained 64% of the variance. The Rasch rating scale model was applied to the API to estimate item calibrations. The factor analyzed assessment categories were…