Merit pay for teachers is often proposed as a compensation system that will enable public schools to motivate teachers to pursue organizational goals. Yet the promise of merit pay is dimmed by knowledge of its history: most attempts to implement merit pay for public school teachers over the last 75 years have failed. The first part of this paper…

Summaries of conference discussions on state funding of public higher education are presented. Attention is directed to the practice and the context of state funding. The following topics are addressed: current state priorities and relationships between state government and publicly-supported institutions, funding for quality, incentives in the…

The Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools (PREPS) model is unique because all research and evaluation activities are conceived, conducted, and controlled by the local public schools, members of the consortium. It is a delivery system designed to improve school effectiveness. PREPS was developed as a result of the demand for school…

Although the main purpose of a school district's evaluation system is to improve employees' performance, the evaluation procedures and the supporting documentation must also serve as evidence in the termination hearings of an unsatisfactory employee. Accordingly, this chapter provides practical advice to school administrators concerning…

The Education Commission of the States (ECS) together with the American Association for Higher Education recently conducted five case studies of state-based approaches to assessment in undergraduate education in Colorado, Missouri, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Virginia. The case studies, in turn, are part of the Missouri Governor John Ashcroft's…

This document describes the progress made by the California public education system after the passage of Proposition 98 that established a stable funding base for education. The first of three sections discusses reforms made in the areas of accountability, curriculum, teaching, partnerships, and underrepresented students in colleges. The second…

The Salt Lake City Board of Education appointed a committee in May 1988 to review shared governance concepts and as a part of the deliberations this handbook was revised. The handbook has seven sections: (1) basic history and philosophy; (2) policies and agreements regarding shared governance; (3) the principles of shared governance; (4) the…

This speech discusses the national emerging trend toward state intervention in local educational processes as part of the academic accountability movement. It provides examples of reforms and improvements whereby state intervention furnished local school improvement. The address focuses on state intervention in Jersey City, New Jersey; predicts…

This guidebook presents a process to elicit and organize information about school district practices, proposes standards to judge the effectiveness of those practices, and provides a method for determining desired improvements. Following the introduction, section 2 contains a distillation of the research findings on school effectiveness along with…

This technical report details the testing results and analyses supporting the evaluation findings related to the Austin (Texas) Independent School District (AISD) minimum competency graduation requirements. The graduation competency status of all AISD students in grades 8 to 12 are documented. The report provides additional information on the data…

Taxpayer revolts have led to increasing concerns about accountability, particularly among ancillary school service personnel. Approximately 150 questionnaires were distributed to school psychologists to obtain a sample of responses to questions commonly asked by parents, educators and the community. Their responses dealt with the role and function…

This paper addresses the notion of accountability in teaching, arguing that teachers themselves should assume the challenge of making themselves accountable by developing a professional code of practice. The underlying notion of professionalism in teaching is first discussed as a context for justifying the further exploration of the possibilities…

The objectives of the Pell Grant quality control (QC) system and the general definition of QC are considered. Attention is also directed to: the objectives of the Stage II Pell Grant QC system design and testing project, the approach used to develop the QC system, and the interface of the QC system and the Pell Grant delivery system. The…

The types and ranges of errors made on applications to the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program were studied, along with procedures used in recovering overpayments. The objective was to assess the scope and nature of misreporting and misuse of the BEOG program. A 1975-1976 study reviewed cases referred to the U.S. Office of Education…

Errors made on applications to the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program were studied to determine the scope and nature of misreporting and misuse of the BEOG program. Characteristics of applicants who misreport personal and/or family financial circumstances were identified, and procedures were established to regularly screen and…