In conjunction with the August 8, 2007 launch of STS-118, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) developed and recently debuted curricular units for Grades K-12 on Space Exploration, known as STS-118 Design Challenges. The units focus on aspects of the themes that NASA…

This article explores the statistical methodologies used in demonstration and effectiveness studies when the treatments are applied across multiple settings. The importance of evaluating and how to evaluate these types of studies are discussed. As an alternative to standard methodology, the authors of this article offer an empirical binomial…

How many times have researchers and professional developers approached you or your school with "the answer" to improving literacy achievement? How did it work out? If changes occurred during the engagement with these outside partners, what remained after the project ended? Did such efforts lead to lasting change and improvement in…

The purpose of this report is to provide an annual overview of activities funded under the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" ("IDEA"), Part D (National Activities to Improve Education of Children with Disabilities), subparts 2 and 3 (P.L. 108-446). "IDEA", Part D, includes programs that support…

There is increasing awareness that domestic violence (DV) and child maltreatment often overlap and that there are significant negative consequences to women and children who are victims in the same families. The present study contains data from a participatory evaluation of a multisite national demonstration project on family violence (the…

Guided by research and the experiences of judges nationwide, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges made a commitment in 1998 to improve community response to families experiencing domestic violence and child maltreatment. A year later, the council's work culminated in a set of recommendations commonly called the "Greenbook,"…

During the spring of 2004, the first federally funded voucher program--the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP)--was established. The School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) recognized that publicly-funded school vouchers represent a relatively new and unstudied approach to school choice and education reform. To address …

A report from the School Choice Demonstration Project examines issues concerning the funding formula used for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). It finds that the program generates a net saving to taxpayers in Wisconsin but imposes a significant fiscal burden on taxpayers in Milwaukee. However, these findings depend significantly on how…

This report focuses on the initial design, implementation and baseline results of the five-year Longitudinal Educational Growth Study (LEGS) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) being conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP). The LEGS will be the first evaluation of the participant effects of the MPCP using…

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project is the most comprehensive effort thus far to ascertain which approaches help welfare recipients and other low-income people stay steadily employed and advance in their jobs. Launched in 1999 and slated to end in 2009, the ERA project encompasses more than a dozen demonstration programs and…

We investigated whether the tendency to imitate or emulate is influenced by the availability of causal information, and the amount of information available in a display. Three and 5-year-old children were shown by either a live or video model how to obtain a reward from either a clear or an opaque puzzle box. Some of the actions in the sequence…

This article provides an overview of a demonstration project at Kent State University that began in 2003. Many of the resulting projects and activities have content material that can be used directly or as a model for others. This demonstration project has also fostered additional Institute of Museum and Library Services funding for scholarships…

This study empirically investigates the effectiveness of Distributed Leadership Teacher Training (DLT) program on improving student's academic achievement. In addition, it both tests the assumption that the year 1 impacts are stable across calendar years and examines the importance of properly accounting for the fact that the standard error of the…

During their three-year research project, the authors found that most practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in the education field were not familiar with Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) or the existing research on IDAs. Therefore, in this paper the authors compiled a list of some of the references that they found useful and that they…

This unique collection of chapters takes the reader on a tour to explore innovative preservice and inservice teacher education practices from many regions of the United States, Canada and the world. Each of the chapters offers an authentic, documentary account of successful initiatives that break the traditional mold of teacher education. Section…