How can lasting change be made in the way art is taught in U.S. schools? This was the challenge facing six regional professional development consortia sponsored by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts (Los Angeles, California). This publication documents the change effort, which is unique because it has affected thousands of students and…

The need for trained counselors/counseling psychologists, and for counselor education, training, and accreditation, are topics of continued discussion within professional organizations, accrediting bodies, universities, and other training institutions. Following an exploratory meeting in 1998 to discuss the need for additional graduate counselor…

The generally accepted concept of inclusion is that students with disabilities attend classes with their general education peers with direct support from special educators. This digest discusses the rationale for inclusion in middle schools, explores recent research on inclusion, and discusses barriers to implementation. The digest notes that the…

A one-year pilot program at five videoconferencing learning centers addressed the use of videoconferencing as an effective instructional delivery model in distance education for post secondary teacher education. The need to offer teachers increased continuing educational opportunities has placed a significant demand on university training programs…

The Literacy Learning Center Project, a project of the Meriden Public Library (Connecticut), targeted the educationally underserved and functionally illiterate, and involved recruitment, retention, space renovation, coalition building, public awareness, training, basic literacy, collection development, tutoring, computer assisted services, and…

In order to document the effects of including secondary students with severe disabilities in rural middle and high schools, a study was conducted in one senior high school and one middle school in Washington School District, Utah. The schools had a total of 8 students with severe disabilities. Specifically, the study examined the beliefs of…

The Virtual High School (VHS) is a cooperative of over 125 high schools, funded by a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant. Teachers in the cooperative, with the help of teacher mentors, instructional technology experts, university faculty, and businesses, design and offer innovative courses over the Internet. This paper discusses VHS course…

This chapter describes how a federally funded farmworker housing facility in northern Colorado--Casa de la Esperanza--has changed the lives of migrant students and their families. The history of migrant workers in Colorado is described, as well as the struggle to construct a permanent farmworker housing facility. Casa was built in Boulder County,…

Overcoming the challenges of educational discontinuity that arise from the migratory lifestyle is the central focus of the Migrant Education Program. This chapter describes Project SMART (Summer Migrants Access Resources through Technology), a national distance learning program for migrant students that addresses such challenges by coordinating…

This article offers a preliminary report of the first 2 years of a 3-year partnership between a university faculty member and a public middle-school teacher. The partnership was guided by four questions: How does academic service learning transform curricular delivery and the critical identity of teacher as a professional? What is the impact of…

A Web site called the "Teachers Lounge" was created to enable group assignments for distance education students taking a televised teacher education course on collaboration and consultation in special education. The primary component of the Web site was case studies of four fictitious children in various grades whose teachers were…

The Leadership to Unify School Improvement Efforts (LUSIE) project worked with school leadership teams from 11 schools in 3 West Virginia county districts to create school plans for improvement. The school leadership teams, a total of 66 people representing a cross-section of each school community, accomplished this at four retreats held in…

This booklet discusses the present state of environmental adult education and its major difficulties and shortcomings and develops recommendations for further development of this field. Section 1 discusses linking environmental and social issues and locating environmental problems within the context of one's daily life and action. Section 2…

How is the next generation going to live within and use the city? This study of the urban environment provided students with opportunities to learn about the function of architecture and planning, to identify their beliefs and opinions, to consider a range of views, and ultimately to make informed and responsible choices concerning the built…

State governments across the nation are engaging community colleges as cornerstones of their comprehensive economic development strategies. This executive summary summarizes the efforts of 10 states, recommended by national experts, to deploy community colleges in support of state economic development priorities. The 10 states are: Florida,…