Australia's first national strategy for vocational education and training (VET), "Towards a Skilled Australia," was formulated in 1994. Within the theme of improved accessibility, the strategy identifies the following groups as disadvantaged in VET: women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, disabled people, people of a…

The Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) program is a comprehensive effort by the state of California to provide education, and employment and support services to eligible welfare recipients. In cooperation with county welfare departments, the California community colleges (CCC) are one of the major systems providing GAIN services to welfare…

This report examines "non-traditional" students in higher education and their characteristics, the types of institutions they attend, and their participation in federal student aid programs. Using data from the "National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey of 1986" the study compares five groups of "non-traditional"…

This manual assists teachers in providing adaptations for disabled and disadvantaged students to ensure their success in the regular vocational classroom and to meet requirements of the new vocational education standards in Iowa, which call for a competency-based curriculum. Introductory pages include strategies for teaching special needs…

Summaries are provided of 37 projects that address the credit education and information needs of consumers. The projects are supported by AT&T Universal Card Services Corp. through a fund managed by the National Coalition for Consumer Education. Each summary provides a project description, grant recipient, and address/telephone number. The…

The Youth Work Skills Program provided basic skills remediation, support services, and subsidized or unsubsidized work placement to out-of-school, economically disadvantaged youth aged 16-21 with demonstrated reading scores at or below the fifth-grade level. The program had three phases: basic education/vocational and career exploration, basic…

This second interim report presents evaluation results from Project Youth Experiencing Success (YES) and documents a decrease in the Virginia statewide event-dropout rate in grades 7 through 12 from 4.8 percent during the 1988-89 school year to 3.3 percent during the 1991-92 year. Event-dropout rates measure the proportion of students who drop out…

This book presents an in-depth examination of 142 U.S. school districts (containing at least 5,000 students and 5 percent Hispanic enrollment) in order to understand Hispanic inequities in education and what can be done to correct these inequities. Chapter 1 presents political theory of educational policy. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the…

This manual is designed to support community organizations, concerned educators, and parents as they work to improve local public schools on behalf of immigrant students. Each chapter focuses on central elements of quality schooling from the perspective of the young immigrant. Within each chapter, an analysis of current conditions prevalent in…

Martin Sanchez Jankowski conducted a 10-year study of gangs of varying ethnicity in three major cities, with a focus on New York City and Los Angeles (California). The center of his research has been in low-income areas, where gangs have been an institution for more than 150 years. Jankowski acquired experience by living with gangs from a variety…

This evaluation of the alternative and partnership schools of the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) public schools (MPS) was commissioned in 1992 and continued in 1993 to provide a qualitative description of the MPS alternative and partnership school network and to give the school system an assessment of each of the programs to determine its viability.…

This report on the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) of 1990-91 presents data on public and private schools, school administrators, and teachers. Data reported for schools include programs or services offered, schools with students receiving Chapter 1 services, graduation rates, and college application rates. The SASS was first conducted in…

Some of the issues faced by institutions as they attempt to design a system of constructs that reflects the diversity of their schools are addressed. The choice of statistic, percentage passing versus mean, used in reporting test results can impact the allocation of services to subpopulations in the school. Percent passing statistics tend to focus…

The California Workforce Literacy Task Force conducted studies and surveyed existing literature to determine the status of literacy and other basic skills in the state's work force. The results are reported with a series of recommendations for a broad-based state strategy to improve worker productivity through better educational opportunities. Ten…

This collection of 15 papers reconceptualizes the problem of failure in schools and describe the interlocking structural arrangements, curricular and instructional practices, and other school conditions that constitute barriers blocking all students' access to knowledge. A new agenda is offered for the national reform movement, an agenda that…