Louisiana is transforming public education with the "Reaching for Results" reform initiative. "Reaching for Results" includes higher standards for what students should know and be able to do, school and district accountability, increased resources for schools and students, and a new testing program, including the Graduation…

This report examines Maryland's role in setting and measuring higher standards; holding schools, districts, and students accountable for results; strengthening teaching and helping schools and districts build capacity to implement reform; and sustaining public support for standards-based reform. A review team analyzed written documents regarding…

Rubrics are tools that formalize the process of evaluation by explicitly stating the criteria to be used for grading. Rubrics help students to evaluate the quality of their work as they progress through a class. They may be very helpful to Ohio adult educators in helping to evaluate the Uniform Portfolio that must be kept on every student within a…

This report presents U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige's "back to school" address to the National Press Club on September 4, 2001. Noting that little progress has been made despite $147 billion spent on federal education programs since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the speech discusses the principles of the…

This handbook, a companion to "Standards for Professional Development Schools," describes an assessment process for Professional Development School (PDS) participants, specifically for PDS standards, developed during 3 years of a field test. The assessment process is intended to support the continued development of PDS partnerships and…

As part of a series of reports designed to support the implementation of Proposition 10: The California Children and Families Act and to provide comprehensive and authoritative information on critical issues concerning young children and families in California, this report addresses how Proposition 10 Commissions can organize their work and their…

This report discusses efforts in adult English as a Second Language (ESL) education to link language instruction to workforce and civic skills (skills needed for successful participation in the community). It looks at the social forces that underlie these efforts (shifts in the U.S. economy, welfare reform, accountability requirements, and learner…

This paper looks at ways of ensuring Czech regions and municipalities are fully motivated to make efficiency improvements in public service provision and so help achieve countrywide fiscal sustainability. The very large number of small municipalities in the Czech Republic means that scale economies are difficult to exploit and the policy options…

In 2004, the Legislature and the Governor of Washington State revised the roles and responsibilities of the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB). House Bill 3103 directed the HECB to establish an accountability monitoring and reporting system to determine how performance would be measured, set targets for achievement within this framework,…

Urban school superintendents hold one of the most important and challenging jobs in America's education system. The Council of the Great City Schools (GCS) represents the majority of large urban school districts in the country. Though there are approximately 17 thousand school districts in the country, the Council's 65 districts serve…

The writer looks at the often contradictory ways in which tests are seen and used. We are told by its defenders that the SAT is a superb measure of academic promise, but its detractors insist that it is next to useless in helping colleges and universities select their entering class. Test-driven accountability systems have been criticized as…

For many "hard-to-staff" schools, the negative consequences of teacher shortages are compounded by characteristics that make these schools less attractive to teachers. Most often located in troubled inner cities or isolated rural areas, these schools are frequently plagued by high poverty in the community, higher teacher turnover rates,…

These two syllabus types are not only representative of the way languages are taught, they also reflect the general teaching styles of the West and the East. While in the West, much attention is given to the actual processes of completing the tasks, a typical Eastern approach places more emphasis on the information that is passed from the teacher…

This report outlines several critical issues that should be addressed in order to allow states to explore and understand relationships between the performance of ELL students on NAEP and on state assessments in this policy context. The results of this study can be useful to a variety of education stakeholders who are interested in improving the…

As demand for after-school services has grown, the public has responded with support for growth in federal, state, and local funding for these services. As in other successful grassroots movements, this high level of support is evident across groups with diverse objectives. Some after-school advocates are mainly interested in increasing the supply…