In 2012, the Credit When It's Due (CWID) initiative was launched by the Funders Collaborative to "encourage partnerships of community colleges and universities to significantly expand programs that award associate degrees to transfer students when the student completes the requirements for the associate degree while pursuing a bachelor's…

This report provides six mini-case studies of higher education policy reforms enacted in other states, exploring the important role that state policy leadership played in developing, promoting, and implementing these policies aimed at improving higher education outcomes, and discussing the relevance of each reform effort for California. This…

The human brain develops rapidly in the first five years of life. High-quality early learning experiences can have a profound and lasting positive effect on young children during these years, setting the stage for success in kindergarten and beyond. This is especially true for young children with high needs who are from low-income families; who…

Higher education's presence in school reform is limited because many university people equate reform with lowered standards and instrumental knowledge, view portfolios as complicating the admissions process, and have low expectations for the secondary school system. Oregon's Proficiency-based Admission Standards System (PASS) is a state-mandated…

Articles describe elements of Oregon's' tech prep program: "New Software Helps Students Visualize a Career Path" (Buhl); "Bridge Construction Ahead" (Roach); and "To Track Students, Oregon Goes to the Bar" (Dutson). (JOW)

Discusses how three states are implementing the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, focusing on Massachusetts' Common Core of Learning, Delaware's First Schools in the First State pilot curriculum project, and Oregon's Initial Mastery and Advanced Mastery certificates. Notes that one of the aims of Goals 2000 is to make states true laboratories of…

Interview with Chris Rhines, who oversees the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program in Oregon, discusses the process used to select schools for CSRD, the critical role of principals as leaders of change, the importance of a school's ability to do a needs assessment and apply the findings, and common implementation problems. (CDS)

Examines the intersection of policy and practice in the areas of systemic reform and special education. Provides examples of statewide system reform efforts in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont, as well as examples of how children with disabilities are included in the total reform efforts. (Author/CR)

States are in the leadership position to effect pervasive and comprehensive changes needed in the educational system. There exist five key dimensions for analyzing initiatives resulting in systemic changes: (1) infusiveness, building upon existing knowledge; (2) pervasiveness, effecting improvements in all key components of the system, including…

This report comprises edited versions of the presentations from the 17 participants in a conference under the sponsoreship of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. The conference was designed to enable policy-makers, educators, and business people to share perspectives on the most effective methods for identifying and collecting data that…

The task of matching people to jobs is made difficult by the cumulative effects of change. Flexibility of the labor force has decreased because of the lack of low skill jobs and the increased employment of women and minority groups. Oregon's research efforts, prompted by need for data by public and private sectors, was directed at ways of…

The Oregon Report Card is an annual portrait of the state's public schools. The first five sections describe statewide progress toward implementing Oregon's Educational Act for the 21st Century, some of the state's exemplary school-improvement programs, and the clear relationship between Oregon's program and national education goals. The remaining…

This second annual report card on the status of Oregon public education describes the implementation of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. Information is presented in the following areas--school finance, staff characteristics and salaries, student demographics and achievement, student participation in programs and services, and…

Between 1972 and 1974, Oregon adopted a series of comprehensive State Minimum Standards popularly titled "competency-based education." This paper addresses two types of research agendas that have emerged relative to these attempts to create a statewide reform. The first involves an ongoing research project whose purpose is to facilitate…

To do a comprehensive assessment of Oregon's professional technical education and work force programs, project evaluators identified, obtained, and extracted relevant data from documents and other related materials that pertained to key program concerns. Fieldwork consisted of four major activities: interviews with key players, written surveys…