To what extent school improvement processes can be initiated and sustained from the outside has been a relevant question for policy-makers seeking to increase quality in education. Since 2008, the Chilean Government is strongly promoting the use of external technical support (ETS) services to support school improvement processes, as part of the…

The purpose of this study evaluates the work completed in the "Jefferson County Public Schools" (JCPS) project, "Making Time for What Matters Most", aiming to improve student achievement, narrow achievement gaps, strengthen students' college readiness skills, and increase the percentages of students who graduate and go on to…

It is true that many child care centers are lacking in natural environments. The emphasis in programs is more often about rules and regulations for children's health and safety, and concerns about allergies, the weather, and getting dirty. It is also difficult to take groups of children into natural environments with inadequate ratios of adults to…

Background: School accountability policies and high-stakes testing have created new demands on state policy makers to provide assistance to low-performing schools. California's response was the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP) and the High Priority School Grants Program (HPSGP). Objective/Research Question/Focus of…

This report is California's response to the four questions that the United States Department of Education (USDE), Division of Adult Education and Literacy, requires of all states and territories receiving federal funding from the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The questions…

Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine the relation between early childhood education and care quality indicators found in state child care regulations and the number of National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredited programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data analysis provided the first…

In this paper, the authors describe their experience of establishing an action research/learning-based doctoral program in Singapore by an Australian university, which was designed to help managers get academic accreditation while solving workplace problems. The program was designed by four managers working in Singapore and their supervisors.…

This report summarizes key findings from the literature on effective developmental education practice. It is designed to promote discussion among community college educators and state agency staff in Connecticut as they consider how to improve outcomes for their many students who are academically unprepared to succeed in college. One common theme…

Context and Purpose: With heightened attention to medical errors and patient safety, we surveyed Utah and Missouri hospitals to assess the "state of the art" in patient safety systems and identify changes over time. This study examines differences between urban and rural hospitals. Methods: Survey of all acute care hospitals in Utah and…

To enable improvements in school health promotion, this paper examines associations between the number of health-promotion issues addressed by primary school teachers in the Netherlands and factors thought to influence this behavior. The main factors studied are context characteristics and constructs of attitude, social influence, self-efficacy…

This article describes a physical education program self-assessment tool, "The Physical Activity and Fitness Promotion Checklist," which was developed by a panel of nationally recognized physical education teachers. This checklist, which specifically addresses national physical education standards three and four, includes 20 items organized into…

A pilot study was designed to examine student perspectives on the first two years of the foreign language program at an east coast college. The study addresses key areas of foreign language teaching and learning in terms of goals and objectives, effectiveness of instruction and instructional approach, and student suggestions for improvement. The…

The Early Development Index (EDI) is a teacher-completed checklist, intended to be a population-level tool to measure children's readiness for school and to alert communities to potential developmental problems in children. In response to the increasing popularity of the EDI, this paper provides a critical and timely evaluation and identifies the…

This guide is designed as a resource for leaders and evaluators of K-12 online learning programs. In this guide, the term "online learning" is used to refer to a range of education programs and resources in the K-12 arena, including distance learning courses offered by universities, private providers, or teachers at other schools;…

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's 2007-2008 state-funded program to assist students who are struggling in reading and math.