The first step in the Validity and Reliability Study summarizes the history and purpose of California's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), reviews findings from other QRIS evaluation studies, and describes the approach to validating the system in California. The majority of this report focuses on providing context for the California…

School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to…

This study examined how higher education is represented in the press by analyzing how four leading newspapers, "The New York Times,""USA Today,""The Washington Post," and "The Wall Street Journal," covered higher education in 1997. The study analyzed a total of 610 higher education stories covering 21…

The four papers in this volume are four parts of a series on the status of recent work on measuring instruction, curriculum content, and instructional resources. These papers are intended to identify aspects of instruction, to analyze the approaches used in several leading studies, and to describe the implications of recent work for National…

The purpose of this content analysis was to examine in detail the nature and extent of messages about sex that are presented in the "family hour" on broadcast network television. The research sought to identify any patterns that exist in portrayals of sexual behavior as well as characters' talk about sex, using a sample of programming…

Part of a series of statistical reports on public broadcasting, this publication is based on data supplied by public television and CPB-qualified public radio stations in a survey of CPB-qualified public radio programming by category. This report is the first study of its kind on public radio content, and the data represent a sample of an entire…

Part of a series of statistical reports on public broadcasting, this publication is based on data provided by public television stations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in a survey of public television programming by category. This is the third report in a new series of analyses which are based on the sample of an entire year. A summary…

As online professional development courses for teachers have grown, the discussion forum has become a locus of considerable research. This study analyzes the discussion forums in four different sessions of a short (4-week) online course for teachers from six schools in three states. This study also compares four methodologies, all of which have a…

An analysis of statistical data is used to examine enrollments and programs in noncollegiate postsecondary schools. A number of factors are reviewed including enrollment and size of public and private noncollegiate postsecondary schools; sex characteristics, age, and racial/ethnic background of students; offerings, length, and charges of programs;…