American businesses and industries have long identified shortages in key career and technical areas--some of these areas require two- or four-year college degrees, whereas others simply require industry certifications. Career and technical education (CTE) has the potential to play a central role in filling these gaps. The current Carl D. Perkins…

This qualitative study explores career counseling and guidance services as provided to students engaged in career and technical education programs at three sites in the United States. The sites, consisting of high schools and community colleges, were part of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's 5-year studies of…

The National Research Center on Career and Technical Education has supported four studies on one of the major components of Perkins legislation: programs of study. In this article, we present qualitative data linking the research center's longitudinal projects based on programs of study, via a one-time cross-case study of sites deemed highly…

This qualitative study examines the effects of career pathways programming and targeted career counseling services on 71 high school seniors across seven schools engaged in school reforms funded through South Carolina's Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA). EEDA is a statewide, multipronged effort to improve academic achievement,…

Beginning from 1 high-poverty, historically low-achieving secondary school's successful turnaround work, this article provides data relative to a successful school turnaround, the importance of external and system-level supports, and the importance of building for sustainable institutionalization of improvements. The evidence suggests the…

This article provides a broad overview of the history of career-focused education in the United States and the reauthorization of the federal Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006. The Perkins act required that the recipients of its funding offer at least one program of study, and this reauthorization included four…

Career-focused education offered through programs of study (POS), career pathways, and career and technical education (CTE) can provide students with opportunities to engage in career exploration and development, to establish career goals, to increase academic knowledge and skills, to test career preferences in applied settings, and to make links…

If our schools were a research project, we'd say that while some aspects of our schools are highly valid, our overall academic systems aren't reliable. If educators are to meet the challenge of leaving no child behind, schools will have to improve with much greater reliability. In the mid-1990s, a group of British secondary schools decided to work…

Drawing on a realistic model for evaluating compensatory education effects, Chapter 1 staff members have developed a workshop series aimed at improving the effectiveness of local Chapter 1 programs. Improvement efforts are to be data driven, research based, team centered, locally controlled, systematic, and focused on student outcomes. (20…

Implementation of the Core Knowledge Sequence in 12 various schools across the United States is evaluated. Interviews and focus groups with teachers and principals reveal the nature of the reform program, local context, systemic and policy level forces, and the capacity for change impact on the implementation process. (MMU)

Presents an overview of the articles in this special issue and defines scaling up and externally developed school reform. Key elements for successful scaling up are highlighted. (MMU)

This special issue provides diverse data sets on a school-improvement initiative in Memphis, Tennessee. The effort seems unusually promising because of top-down district support for eight separate site-based reform designs, planners' reliance on New American Schools and other familiar designs, long-term data-collection opportunities, accessible…

To determine local educators' responses to being targeted for program improvement, questionnaires were sent to principals of all schools identified for Chapter 1 improvement in three states. Approximately 104 (84 percent) of the responding schools supported the legislative provisions for improvement and could focus on the issues of improvement.…

This article presents findings from a 4-year study of 13 culturally and linguistically diverse elementary schools implementing comprehensive school reform (CSR) models. The study focused on: (a) the actions at the state and district levels that facilitated or inhibited reform implementation; (b) the adaptability of the various reforms in…

This study examined the generalizability of the Stallings Effective Use of Time Program (EUTP). Four series of the EUTP were analyzed for levels of teachers' classroom behavioral change. Observational data gathered before and after the four workshop series provided significant support for the generalizability of change from such programs. (JD)