When people talk about "community college leadership," they typically refer to presidents or other executive leaders, mirroring a common societal perception that leaders are individuals at the top of an organization's hierarchy. However, leading from the middle is not a contradiction in terms. A growing number of community college…

Higher education can help improve Washington residents' outcomes so they will have the opportunity to lead productive and financially rewarding lives and contribute to the economic success and social wellbeing of the state. But the COVID-19 crisis is having a major impact on higher education, and postsecondary enrollment in Washington was down 13…

The Minnesota Independent School Forum (MISF) contracted with Wilder Research to conduct a study of private K-12 education in Minnesota, referred to as the Statewide Census of Private Education (SCOPE). The Minnesota Independent School Forum conducted prior SCOPE surveys in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2012. MISF also contracted with Wilder to conduct…

Background/Context: In response to state-level test-based accountability and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, school administrators increasingly view centralized curriculum and prescribed instructional strategies as the most direct means of increasing student performance. This movement toward standardization reduces teachers' autonomy and…

Investigated how state officials most directly involved in hunter education programs perceive problems associated with these programs. Major concerns and constraints focused on: program instruction; course content; and program communication, funding, and evaluation. Includes recommendations (based on analyses of concerns/constraints) to…

Over the last decade, teacher performance assessments (TPAs) have begun to find appeal in the context of teacher education programs and teacher licensing for their innovative ways of assessing teacher knowledge and skills but primarily for their potential to promote teacher learning and reflective teaching. Studies of preservice teachers who have…

This volume presents 22 papers that discuss thinking in the context of subjects taught in general education, special and vocational education, educational technology, and special programs. The key note article is: (1) "A Case for Higher Order Thinking" (G. Garcia Jr.). Under the heading "Educational Technology" are: (2)…

An evaluation of the fifth cycle of operation of the Massachusetts Workplace Education Initiative had several purposes: (1) to identify the indicators of quality in workplace education; (2) to begin to design an evaluation system for each program; and (3) to assess the indicators of quality for workplace education programs against the national…

Information about the current status of state support for school health programs is provided in this report. A survey of state directors responsible for each school health area in the 50 states and District of Columbia yielded a response rate of 100 percent. Seven chapters cover state organization and coordination, personnel, and programming…

Although Pennsylvania's Long Range Planning for School Improvement (LRPSI) assumes linkage between school improvement and school compliance with state-mandated registration process guidelines, the extent to which the newly mandated evaluation/registration process will actually contribute to substantive school improvement and a rebuilding of public…

This report is the second of three annual reports to the Montana Certification Standards and Practices Advisory Council (CSPAC) on the effectiveness of mentoring new teachers. Specific research topics for the study were: (1) whether mentoring conducted under an exclusive one-on-one relationship has an effect on the new teacher's development as…

This report is the third of four reports on the Beginning Teacher Support Program (BTSP) on the effectiveness of mentoring new teachers. The paper focuses on technical aspects of the study. Study data are summarized in tables, including a comparison of teacher retention rates over the three years of BTSP, a summary of administrators' evaluations…

Calculators were used in the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade public school and private school students and in the Trial State Assessment of 8th-grade public school students. Before they were tested, all of the students were trained briefly in how to use the equipment. NAEP collected information…

Massachusetts passed the first state legislation mandating bilingual education in 1971, the Transitional Bilingual Education Bill (TBE). This publication contains five case studies that demonstrate how teachers and schools have responded to the needs of their minority group students. The first case study, "Bilingual Education in a Bilingual…

The following considerations are of major importance to the persons who act as technical assisters for the Long Range Plan for School Improvement (LRPSI) in Pennsylvania: (1) long-range planning should be viewed as a deliberative and participative process; its steps should not be considered in isolation from each other; (2) comprehensive needs…