"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Senate Committee Reports Education Spending Bill: Senate Appropriations Bill Continues Cuts to Education Funding;…

This study highlights the value of leveraging department resources in principal preparation program resources to achieve multiple teaching and program review goals. In this study, masters degree candidates participated in all aspects of the evaluation of the Department of Educational Administration and Counseling. As consumers they already had a…

Creating ways to make a discipline come alive for those who are not experts--even for students who may not take more than one or two courses in the disciplines they study--requires rigorous thought about what really matters in a field and how to engage students in the practice of it. Faculty from Alverno College representing a range of liberal…

The main purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the main characteristics of project-based online learning (PBOL) for a graduate enchased Web-based course, Designing and Developing Distance Education, to promote the critical learning skills of online learners to engage them in projects designed to be realistic, intriguing and relevant real…

This report investigates the relationship between graduate satisfaction and graduate characteristics, courses, course outcomes, and provider. It uses results from the 1997 technical and further education (TAFE) Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) of 60,746 students who completed a course at a TAFE institute in 1996 and staff interviews. A glossary…

This document contains statistics in summary form about higher education in Maryland. The first table compares Maryland data to national averages for educational achievement, enrollment, campus mix in enrollments, degrees conferred, average resident undergraduate tuition and fees, state funding, and average faculty salaries. Other tables, grouped…

The integrated Aimhigher programme was established in 2004 to widen participation in higher education by raising the aspirations and developing the abilities of young people from underrepresented groups. In order to explore the extent to which young people subsequently made a successful transition at 16 and intended, or had decided, to continue…

For past two decades, there has been a growing national concern about teacher quality. This presentation discusses Connecticut's Beginning Educator Support and Training Program (BEST) and emulation of its assessment component by a medium sized department of education. The support component of BEST requires that all school districts provide…

Clinical supervision is an ongoing series of professional development cycles through which preservice and beginning teachers move from being apprentices at induction and probationary levels to being members of peer evaluation teams and self-reflective practitioners. Development of collaboration between field experience offices and local school…

The report is a comprehensive survey of incoming freshmen at the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP). The profile includes 2493 new students surveyed during their summer 1997 orientation. The student make-up included 53 percent males and 47 percent females; 64 percent were Caucasian and 36 percent were from minority ethnic or racial…

A discussion of communication between native English-speaking (NS) tutors and their non-native-speaker (NNS) students draws on a study conducted in the Indiana University writing center and focuses on conflicts between effectiveness in communication and effectiveness in instruction technique. Examples of tutor-student (NS-NNS) interaction are…

This report presents data and findings from a 5-year follow-up study to an earlier 16-year (1974-1989) longitudinal study of trends in the hiring and promotion of female faculty within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The two studies have produced an information base on full-time faculty in the state system from 1974-75 through…

This report on fall 1994 and 1995 enrollments at public, four-year colleges and universities provides a narrative summary, statistical tables and graphs, and full-time and part-time 1995 enrollment data for specific colleges and universities arranged by state. Enrollment data are broken down for the following categories of students: first-time…

This collection of graphs and text, part of a series describing the public colleges and universities in Virginia, are intended to answer the question, "What is it like to be a student at a public college or university in Virginia?" Most graphs provide data for fall 1995 and are broken down by individual four-year institution and the…

This book examines how a relationship between the University of Vermont and school districts throughout the state enables teachers to earn graduate credits through year-long Problem-Based School Development Institutes. The institutes take participants through a cycle that includes identifying a problem, conducting background and action research,…