In 1991, the U.S. Congress commissioned the Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement to investigate the various aspects of education reform. This digest summarizes the findings of a resulting study that focused on the effects of school reform on students at risk. The digest identifies the components of effective…

Most community colleges are involved in some sort of staff development program and are also undergoing constant change involving restructuring, rightsizing, or developing new missions and objectives. In general, the more institutionalized and integrated a staff development program is, the more effective the organization will be. Organizations are…

This paper focuses on how career and work activities can be incorporated into the everyday curricula of elementary students and made part of their records through use of Individual Career Development Portfolios (ICDP). It promotes use of the ICDP as both a collection of student works that result from career awareness activities and experiences…

This study surveyed college faculty about the establishment of professional development schools (PDSs) to raise the status of teaching as a profession and transform teacher education. A total of 58 faculty attending a conference sponsored by the Holmes Group Initiative on the development and implementation of PDSs completed a survey on the…

This book contains the following papers on the Leonardo da Vinci project: "Looking for Post-16 Education Strategies for Parity of Esteem in Europe" (Lasonen); "Improving Parity of Esteem as a Policy Goal" (Makinen, Volanen); "Alternative Strategies for Parity of Esteem between General/Academic and Vocational Education in…

For nearly 20 years, the California Postsecondary Education Commission has been actively involved in the development of a strong and vigorous private postsecondary and vocational education presence in California. The private postsecondary sector serves some 412,000 students seeking an education beyond high school. Following a period in the early…

This guide presents a step-by-step portfolio assessment method for teachers who want to implement portfolio assessment in their classrooms. Portfolio assessment is not neat or tidy in its early stages, but tidy and organized portfolios can be constructed if the outlined steps are followed. These are: (1) storage and establishing a file for each…

Any employment-related English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program, whether conducted on the job or as pre-employment training, results from five steps: conducting a need analysis of the language and cultural awareness needed to perform successfully in the workplace; developing a curriculum, based on objectives, that identifies and prioritizes…

This report examines time-limited welfare beginning at the broadest level, tracing the rapid emergence of time-limited welfare as a policy approach in part I. Chapter 1 examines the history of time-limited welfare and the key challenges posed by this policy. Part II begins to focus on the three participating states--Florida, Vermont, and…

This book presents an approach that organizes the principles and processes of an emerging human resource development (HRD) paradigm requiring training to be everyone's business. Chapter 1 describes the paradigm and presents a practical approach for applying it. Chapter 2 draws a picture of highly effective training (HET), focusing particularly on…

"Jobs Rally" is a community event that can be coordinated by a human service program or institution to help communities become more responsive to the independent living and career development needs of people with severe disabilities. This manual outlines how to conduct a jobs rally. The manual begins with a very brief four-step community…

This publication summarizes research that investigated how school-based management (SBM) can be implemented for long-term school improvement. It is argued that a successful SBM plan must be part of a quest for improvement and utilize a "high involvement" model. In addition to having more power, schools need knowledge of the organization,…

The report details the findings of a study concerning the support services needed to provide effective public school instruction for California's population of linguistically and culturally diverse students. Information was obtained from three sources: school district and intermediate agency administrators and professional personnel trainers;…

This guide explains the benefits and use of Ohio's career passport, which is designed to serve as a standard statewide vocational credential that represents individuals as completers of secondary or adult vocational programs and that is transferable across the state regardless of where a vocational completer received training. Discussed in section…

This document is designed to help local practitioners construct new tech prep systems that bridge the federal Tech Prep Education Act with the new School-to-Work Opportunities legislation. Section I provides a historical and philosophical foundation for new systems. It describes the movement's roots, legislation, and local, state, and federal…