This report is intended to provide practitioners and policymakers with a thorough history of efforts to link employment and training programs, community development programs, small business development programs, minority enterprise development programs, and economic development programs. The report contains three sections. Section 1 is an essay on…

Following a critique of so-called educational testing, this article examines three "educationally noteworthy school testing programs"--those of Portland, Oregon; Orange County, Florida; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and one noteworthy school with no standardized testing: the Prospect School in Bennington, Vermont. Derives some broad…

This bulletin focuses on the requirement of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 that school-to-work initiatives engage representatives of organized labor in the development, implementation, and governance of a school-to-work system. The first section outlines what organized labor brings to the school-to-work initiative. The next section…

This bulletin highlights strategies to enhance professional development for employers and enable employers to develop structured work-based learning opportunities for employees. The first section highlights these strategies: ensuring top-level support; providing assistance in developing structured work-based learning opportunities; training…

This bulletin begins with a discussion of the role of postsecondary institutions in school-to-work. The following section presents strategies to engage postsecondary institutions in school-to-work: articulation agreements, developing partnerships and systems, coordinated learning, multiple admissions standards, assessment and follow-up, and…

The purposes of this literature search were to document the need to increase the number of minority teachers in the nation's elementary and secondary schools and review recommendations for designing a teacher education model to meet that need. Community colleges have proven to be the most successful institutions for helping Blacks and Hispanics…

This document contains a literature review conducted as part of a study to develop criteria to measure the extent of implementation and the effectiveness of demonstration projects in vocational education. The literature review serves two purposes: it establishes the state of the art in measuring the effectiveness of educational innovations and it…

Despite the many criticisms that have been made of vocational education teacher preparation, the field has many strengths that can serve as a base on which to build excellent programs. Six examples of excellence are pointed out: (1) important vocational teacher competencies have been identified and verified; (2) high quality performance-based…

The final document in a series on least restrictive environment (LRE) placement for handicapped students summarizes the objectives and findings of the project. Research questions, methodology, and conclusions are reviewed from each of four research activities: state education agency analysis; local education agency analysis; legal analysis; and…

Annie E. Casey Jobs Initiative sites recognize the challenge that long-term retention poses in today's labor market for low-income residents. They have developed key elements of an operational definition of retention, including the following: no limitation to one job, but only very limited gaps between jobs; and jobs in construction or other…

This article explores current educational reform initiatives as they relate to curriculum and assessment, programs for at-risk students, collaborative schools, and the regular education initiative. Implications for teacher preparation include the need for defining the knowledge base, designing alternative program models, and developing exemplary…

This digest consists of two brief articles. The lead article, "The School-to-Work Opportunities Act: An Opportunity To Serve All Students" (Mary Wiberg) tells how the STW Act differs from vocational education by expanding the traditional programs and reflecting the constructivist model of education reform and how STW meets the needs of…

This bulletin describes practitioner-identified strategies that can help build effective school-to-work systems in rural areas. The first section highlights these strategies for rural school-to-work partnerships: start early; identify educational and economic opportunities in the community; entrepreneurial experiences; community service-learning;…

The development of the Satellite Television Demonstration Project in Alaska, delivering commercial entertainment television, is briefly described; and important educational issues related to the delivery and usage of commercial television via satellite in Alaska are discussed, including (1) justification for the demonstration project; (2)…

This concept paper outlines the rationale for a project on the development of science curriculum for K-8 high ability learners. The rationale was developed through a synthesis of major recommendations from national science reform reports and from a review of the literature on effective science curriculum for high ability learners. The paper begins…