"Caring School Community"[TM] ("CSC") is a modified version of a program formerly known as the "Child Development Project" ("CDP"). The "CSC" program has been recently revised to eliminate some elements of the "CDP" that were shown in evaluation studies to be inconsistently or poorly…

African American adolescents disproportionately perform poorly compared to peers in both behavioral and academic aspects of their educational experience. In this study, African American male students participated in an after-school program involving tutoring, group counseling, and various enrichment activities. All students were assessed regarding…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Origins of the WASC Assessment Leadership Academy; (2) Editor's Notes: Parallel Paths to Progress in Assessment in Europe and the United States; (3) The Impact of the First Three Years of the WASC Assessment Leadership Academy; (4) Restructuring the Writing Program at…

In this article the authors reason that current reform efforts in education--such as those fueled by Race to the Top (www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop) or the Common Core Standards (www.commoncorestandards.org)--emphasize the need to improve teacher preparation programs in ways that ensure graduates are ready for the realities in today's…

The Winthrop University-School Partnership Network is a dynamic, diverse, and growing partnership of educators from nine school districts, thirty schools, and Winthrop University. As a Network, they have a vision of shared responsibility for student achievement through clinically-based teacher preparation, sustained collaborative professional…

This purpose of this Act is to amend and extend the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes. This Act includes the following titles: (1) General Provisions; (2) Teacher Quality Enhancement; (3) Institutional Aid; (4) Student Assistance (Grants to Students in Attendance at Institutions of Higher Education, Federal Family Education Loan…

This paper presents Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now's (ConnCAN's) annual report for 2008. The pages of this report are filled with the "Faces of Change" in Connecticut education. These students, teachers, principals, community leaders, and parents are working in their own ways to fix Connecticut's public schools. Over the past…

The authors examined the parent-therapist alliance in parent management training for children (N = 218; 53 girls and 165 boys, ages 2-14) referred clinically for oppositional, aggressive, and antisocial behavior. The interrelations of pretreatment parent social relationships, the parent-therapist alliance over the course of treatment, and…

Discusses the evaluation of library reference service; examines problems with past evaluations, including the lack of long-term planning and a systems perspective; and suggests a method for continuously monitoring and improving reference service using quality improvement tools such as checklists, cause and effect diagrams, Pareto charts, and…

These four papers are from a symposium that was facilitated by Richard J. Torraco at the 1995 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD). "Performance Technology--Isn't It Time We Found Some New Models?" (William J. Rothwell) reviews briefly two classic models, describes criteria for the high performance workplace…

From 1981 through 1983, 32 schools in 28 districts participated in the pilot study authorized by California's School Attendance Improvement Act. On the basis of that study, the first of this report's two chapters offers six steps for a comprehensive approach to improving attendance: (1) assessing actual attendance, (2) developing policies and…

This report summarizes the major findings and recommendations of the final evaluation of the State Dissemination Grants Program (SDGP), a major initiative within the mission of the National Institute of Education to assist state educational agencies (SEAs) in implementing, strengthening, and institutionalizing dissemination services that improve…

Problems in recruitment for big-time collegiate sports are updated, and an eleven-point improvement program is proposed. Statistics on football and basketball recruitment are updated, many through the 1985 season. New focus is placed on "blue chip" recruiting, and maps of recruiting by selected institutions, conferences, and states are…

This book presents an argument for school improvement and explains how it might be conducted. Three stages of evolutionary school improvement are identified and described: refinement, renovation, and redesign. It is suggested that the real task is not only innovating improvements; the real task is uniting teachers, administrators, and community…

The seven-member board of a Texas school district decided to scrutinize its own performance through a self-evaluation instrument used by each member to evaluate how the board functions, not how each individual functions. Benefits of board self-evaluation include reaffirmation of the board's role, encouragement of board harmony, and identification…