Many states and school districts are rethinking how they do educational assessment. A few are going further: attempting to build "balanced," "comprehensive," or "next-generation" assessment systems. At the same time, practitioners and researchers have long mulled the purposes and parts such systems should have. But…

For more than a decade, states have evaluated school performance largely through a single measure--test scores--and rated schools on whether they improved students' performance in reading or math. The idea was to focus schools' attention on the outcomes that mattered most and to focus states' attention on the schools that needed the most help in…

Reliable and consistent time series are essential to any kind of economic forecasting. Skills forecasting needs to combine data from national accounts and labour force surveys, with the pan-European dimension of Cedefop's skills supply and demand forecasts, relying on different international classification standards. Sectoral classification (NACE)…

As institutions of higher learning rapidly expand their offerings of online, hybrid and other distance learning opportunities for their students, librarians must adapt, adopt and improve information literacy instruction methods to accommodate instructors they may never meet and classes they may never see. Many responses to these challenges, such…

Thomas Freidman (2005) asserts that technology has created a transnational platform for communication, collaboration, and competition that is stimulating global opportunity for all individuals. After years of robust study abroad programs and the recent "bricks and mortar" expansion of U.S. higher education overseas, we are now seeing the true…

In his keynote address at the "New York Times" Schools for Tomorrow 2011 Fall Conference, Dr. Larry Summers (2011) suggested that technology implementations have an unusual growth pattern. New technology innovations usually require more time to "catch on" than one might expect, but once they catch on, their use spreads more quickly than anyone can…

Faced with rising demand for information about early childhood programs, states need to find tools and strategies to monitor the progress of and to identify high-quality early childhood programs. In response, REL Mid-Atlantic convened a regional workgroup for state personnel who work with the systems containing early childhood data. The workgroup…

In a tight job market, IT professionals with database experience are likely to be in great demand. Companies need database personnel who can help improve access to and security of data. The events of September 11 have increased business' awareness of the need for database security, backup, and recovery procedures. It is our responsibility to…