The "Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 19981" (commonly referred to as "Perkins," "Perkins III," or "the Act" and referred to hereafter as "Perkins III") requires, in Sec. 113(c)(3)(C), that the secretary provide the appropriate committees of Congress copies of annual…

This article describes the pedagogy, practice and outcomes of a digital art program developed to enable high school and middle school students to become active participants in new forms of grassroots public media. Students and their teachers become producers and controllers of art-based videos and associated digital dialogue which is distributed…

This report presents findings of a study conducted to identify the components of systems that effectively meet the diverse, ever changing needs of children with disabilities for whom traditional school settings do not work. A secondary goal of this study was to develop a conceptually clear and empirically grounded definition of alternative…

This research is a follow up to a similar study published by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania in 2003 in which researchers examined alternative education policies and practices among Pennsylvania school districts. The current study extended the previous research to include information on the perceptions of administrators and teachers on the…

Although the number of urban Catholic schools has declined in recent years, Nativity model middle schools, first developed by the Jesuits over 35 years ago, have appeared throughout the nation to address the need for effective alternative education for urban children placed at risk. The present study compares the effectiveness of two types of…

This paper presents findings of the longitudinal School Success Study (SSS), which is being conducted to determine the academic and social effects of nongraded (multiage, continuous progress) programs on Tennessee elementary school students. Covering the years 1993-99, the research seeks to identify successful school practices in both nongraded…

These occasional papers focus on open learning and distance education. This volume contains four papers on a variety of topics: bridging courses, issues for researchers in evaluating interactive multimedia, designing study materials to address the special needs of distance students, and faculty attitudes concerning technology. Papers are:…

The Project for Adult College Education (PACE) is a general education core curriculum designed for working adults. PACE students receive approximately half the classroom hours in each subject area that they would in a traditional classroom. The balance of time is devoted to viewing course-related instructional television and participating in…

Teachers in the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) Program of Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services have recognized the need to foster intercultural awareness and understanding as well as language learning in their classrooms. Discussion of cultural traditions and holiday celebrations in the countries of origin of Central…

The Iowa Distance Education Alliance (IDEA) is a partnership involving educational institutions across Iowa that have received funding from the Federal Star Schools Program to demonstrate the use of the Iowa Communication Network's (ICN) fiber optic technology for elementary and secondary education. First-year activities focused on teacher…

The pursuit of curriculum and the role of tradition in curriculum development are explored for Norway at the national-political level. The contexts of influence and of policy text production are considered. In Norway there currently exists a new type of nationally mandated curriculum guideline, a general policy curriculum document calling for a…

This paper presents the implications of an ongoing project on the design and development of multimedia instructional material for teaching and learning computer science topics at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Important pedagogical requirements that CAI software should satisfy include: (1) animation of the changes in tree topologies; (2)…

A charter school is an autonomous educational entity operating under a contract negotiated between the organizers who manage the school (teachers, parents, or others from the public or private sector) and the sponsors who oversee the provisions of the charter (local school boards, state education boards, or some other public authority). The…

The United States Congress enacted the Educational Partnerships Act in 1988. The Educational Partnerships Program (EPP) stimulated the creation of educational partnerships to demonstrate their contribution to educational reform. The Office of Educational Research (OERI) provided funds to 30 educational partnerships. This document contains five…

Expeditionary learning creates a learning environment in which teachers and students together take a journey into an area with many unknowns for the purpose of promoting self-discovery. Of the 10 principles of expeditionary learning, 7 closely match the practices of Outward Bound. As Outward Bound staff designed an inservice program on…