The educational reform movement has caused parents, students, businesspersons, and legislators to question the relevance of vocational education. Charges that vocational education has become obsolete have compelled vocational educators to work on improving its image in three areas--function, quality, and style. The vocational education programs in…

A questionnaire was developed to assess high school principals' attitudes regarding the Tennessee Proficiency Test. The questionnaires were distributed statewide to the 147 public high school principals; 121 principals responded. Questionnaire items dealt with issues such as policy statements, remedial activities, graduation requirements, and…

A report presenting a sampling of proficiency-related projects consists of two parts. The first is a report on the state of the art describing programs, grants in progress, and plans to implement proficiency-based teaching. It was found that the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) have…

Because the outcome of education should be independence as well as a sense of accomplishment in serving others, educational objectives should consist of a demonstration of competence, the application of learning, creative responses, and the ability of one learner to teach the other. Educators need to reinforce examples of the work ethic and…

This brief report states that legal problems with competency testing have been more procedural than substantive-more concerned with implementation than legitimacy. The right to notice is the most straight-forward and firmly established principle to emerge from competency testing litigation. Students must have fair warning and opportunity to…

The primary purpose of the Eastern Iowa Community College District (EICCD) Program Evaluation Process is to ensure curricular relevance, instructional quality and the effective and efficient use of resources. Developed and pilot-tested on 38 vocational-technical programs, the model is being utilized by more than 120 technical and community…

The necessity of controlling the order in which trained essay raters for a statewide writing assessment program receive student essays was studied. The underlying theoretical question concerns possible rater bias caused by raters reading long strings of essays of homogeneous quality; this problem is usually referred to as context effect or…

The Austin (Texas) Independent School District (AISD) required that all students who graduated in 1985-86 and previous years have skills in reading and mathematics equivalent to ninth-grade level or above. Special education students who could not be validly tested were exempted from the requirements. Students who had not met the requirements could…

The first phase of a study of the effects of new high school graduation requirements in Maryland was conducted in 1986. Interviews were conducted with 182 administrators, teachers, and students about their perspectives on new requirements instituted in 1985. Transcript records were analyzed for 249 students from 5 high schools. Interview data did…

This report provides educators and the general public with statistics about education in Connecticut's 165 public school districts during 1983-84. Statistical summaries for each town describe community characteristics, superintendent's office information, enrollment of pupils overall and by major sub-group, proficiency test results, program…

A study examined the characteristics that might be shared among tenth and eleventh grade students who fail the "New Jersey Minimum Basic Skills Test" (MBS) in reading. The scores of 15 students in the graduating classes of 1986 and 1987 who had failed to attain the minimum score of 75 prior to remedial instruction were studied. The…

America has not attained its goal of a fully literate and educated population. In order to assure high school graduation for all students, states must undertake new initiatives to reach the one out of four youth who does not graduate. Substantial changes in education policy and in school practice are necessary to accomplish this objective. These…

In light of recent advances in the field of microcomputers and the general availability of inexpensive means of storing and transmitting information, this paper discusses the potential educational uses of computers and considers the role of computer technology and "technological literacy" in higher education. By way of example, the paper describes…

In response to the Utah State Board of Education's new high school graduation requirements, five task forces of adult basic education teachers were charged with the identification of functional competencies for adult students in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and computation, and with the development of curricular materials…

A guide to the program in English as a second language (ESL) in the Federal Way, Washington, School District at the elementary, intermediate, and senior high school levels outlines program elements and requirements and suggests techniques and approaches for teachers of ESL. The progressive levels of language proficiency as indicated by the…