The authors analyse the reasons for Croatian higher education reform since 2003, as well as its consequences. The main proposition of the paper is that the implementation of the Bologna Process in Croatia has failed due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the goals of the process, a lack of correspondence between the cycles of higher education…

Using clickers to gauge student understanding in large classrooms is well documented. Less well known is the effectiveness of using clickers with youth for test taking in large-scale Extension programs. This article describes the benefits and challenges of collecting evaluation data using clickers with a third-grade population participating in a…

Background/Context: Testing accommodations have been widely utilized as a way of increasing the validity of content assessments for English language learner (ELL) students. However, concerns have also arisen regarding the appropriateness of accommodation use, including the accessibility and fairness of accommodations. While many states have…

Background: Public health professionals must monitor the effectiveness of school policies and programs to prevent youth initiation, promote quitting, and eliminate secondhand smoke. This analysis of school tobacco policies was preliminary to release of a state tobacco prevention and control plan for 2010-2015. Methods: University health educators…

Background: The availability of competitive foods in schools is a modifiable factor in efforts to prevent childhood obesity. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation launched the Healthy Schools Program in 2006 to encourage schools to create healthier food environments, including the adoption of nutritional guidelines for competitive beverages and…

A significant challenge facing the IS discipline worldwide is the reversal of the low numbers of students currently enrolling in IS courses. While there is a growing body of literature which offers various insights into the IS enrollment crisis, almost all of this work is either from U.S. scholars or based on findings from U.S. universities. This…

This qualitative, descriptive case study employed the use of narrative to investigate a virtual school program in a public school district in Texas. A focus group interviewing process was used to interview the participants. Findings from this study conclude that with continued support from district leaders, along with having the appropriate…

The current study examined the application of implementation adherence monitoring and group feedback procedures with teachers implementing the Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI; Fountas & Pinnell, 2008a). Using a repeated measures design across time, changes in implementation adherence levels were examined as teachers participated in…

How do you stay focused on increasing student learning when budget cuts threaten everything you are striving for? This book offers a comprehensive framework to enhance student achievement in good times and in bad. School reform expert Allan R. Odden outlines a school improvement action plan focused sharply on student learning and then shows how to…

This study responds to regional and national needs by examining the impact on students' English language proficiency of a particular set of ELL-specific classroom materials in combination with a specific teacher professional development program. The classroom materials used in this study, entitled On Our Way to English (OWE), were authored by…

This fall, the nine states that finished as runners up in last year's groundbreaking Race to the Top competition will have an opportunity to reapply for a grant. The winners will receive a combined $200 million to help implement the bold education reform plans they developed last year. Many of the eligible states already have clear roadmaps toward…

The top priority for the U.S. Department of Education's new Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) competition is to create personalized-learning environments to bolster student achievement: "Absolute Priority 1: Personalized Learning Environments. To meet this priority, an applicant must coherently and comprehensively address how it will build on…

The National High School Center continues to receive inquiries about how to support high school implementation of response to intervention (RTI). Given the National High School Center's previous work on the topic, the authors wanted to better understand the conditions that contribute to or inhibit implementation of tiered frameworks in high…

In 2009, the federal government committed over $3 billion nationwide to help states and districts turn around their worst-performing schools. The U.S. Department of Education intended for the School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to spur dramatic change. This report looks at the results of a field study of the first-year implementation of those grants…

The impact of education decentralization on high-quality education has been mixed at best. This can be attributed to a variety of factors including decentralization itself, ineffectual implementation, political-economic friction, and poor design. This paper focuses largely on the issue of design, contending that if governments or donors aim to…