Discusses the history of backup reference service in the state of New Jersey including the transition from regional backup service; describes the current statewide service; and considers future service possibilities in light of recent trends, including a decrease in the number of reference questions being received in libraries. (LRW)

This article describes the North Carolina Environmental Education (EE) Certification Program, which was established in 1997, and examines the certification experiences of the kindergarten through 12th grade teachers who have completed the program. Because this program is central to describing and assessing the status of K-12 environmental…

In an effort to assist family and consumer sciences teachers with the huge task of rewriting local curriculum to meet new state and national standards, a statewide collaborative effort was implemented in Washington. Teachers worked in groups around the state to create curriculum for frequently taught courses. While the groups worked together to…

The 1990s ushered in a new age in state financial support for college students, with the rise of broad-based merit scholarships. Starting in the South and spreading from there, the premise of the "new generation" of programs was simple--states should be in the business of rewarding student performance, retaining the state's "best…

Science exhibitions are really great opportunities to students as well as teachers to disseminate knowledge that they have, and to experience a variety of new inventions and innovations that also need wide dissemination. The great significance of exhibition is that it fosters acquisition of different process skills leading to the development of…

Through its AlaskAdvantage[R] Programs, the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education promotes, supports, and provides access to postsecondary education for Alaskans and in Alaska. This publication reports on another year of success for the state's higher education assistance agency. Among the accomplishments this year to make higher…

Today, it is increasingly difficult for states to adequately satisfy the demand for well-funded and quality public services, such as K-12 education by relying exclusively on traditional, broad-based taxes for fiscal support. State sponsored lotteries are an increasingly popular, non-traditional revenue stream for public education. There is in many…

The state of Vermont closed its only institution for persons with intellectual disabilities in 1993 and moved to a totally community-based model of services. Here we describe the characteristics of the near exhaustive statewide sample of adult male sex offenders with intellectual disabilities (N = 103) who received these services between 1993 and…

Career clusters represent a nationwide effort to help learners obtain the knowledge and skills they need for career success, mobility and advancement by aligning what is taught in the classroom to business and industry expectations. In this article, the authors, education department officials from Nebraska, Virginia, and Alabama, outline the…

No Child Left Behind has become a permanent fixture in the world of education. This paper seeks to use the construct of figured worlds as described by Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, & Cain, (1998) to examine the ways policy makers and teachers navigate the world of literacy education. Viewing policy makers and teachers as participants in…

Since the first child care Quality Rating System (QRS) was implemented in Oklahoma 11 years ago (in 1998), 16 additional statewide systems have been launched and numerous states are piloting or developing a QRS (Zaslow, Tout, & Martinez-Beck, forthcoming). As QRS stakeholders across the nation look ahead to the next decade, it is important to take…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

The Emerge One-to-One Laptop Learning Project (Emerge) was established in 2006 by Alberta Education to investigate the efficacy of wireless computing for learning and teaching. In 2007, the Alberta provincial government awarded 3-year grants to 20 Alberta jurisdictions. Based on the projections in the awardees' applications, the project…

This annual report highlights SREB's recent achievements and how its services are helping the 16 member states rise to the challenge of improving education at all levels. The report also includes remarks from the Board Chair and President, acknowledges chief contributors and lists members of the Board, Legislative Advisory Council and SREB staff.…

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of public schools and their progress towards the goals of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. The purpose of the Oregon Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the…