Since 1992, Vermont has been pioneering the development of community partnerships for improving social well-being, using indicators to track success. The working definition of a community, for outcome purposes, is the area served by a school supervisory union. Vermont is divided into 60 such supervisory unions (school districts), but…

This document reports on the Long-Range Plan for Technology, 1996-2010 for the state of Texas. At the beginning of the report, is a list of the members of the Task Force on Technology and a schedule of meetings, followed by the Vision of Technology in Education, 2010. The next part of the report is "The Need to Update the '1988-2000…

The 29th in the National Center for Early Development & Learning's (NCEDL) "Spotlight" series, this report is based on a technical report available online, and summarizes findings of a study analyzing the change strategies used in the development of pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds in the states of Georgia, Illinois, New…

This report presents the results of the third administration of the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP). These results are part of a long-term effort to gather data on the educational progress of Delaware students and to use the data to inform decisions about instruction. Reading, writing, and mathematics results are summarized in this report;…

In 1999, an external review was conducted of the indicators and methodology that the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (NCHEMS) had developed for "Measuring UP 2000: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education." The principal purpose of these tests was to understand better the relationships among the indicators and…

This annual report details the accomplishments of the Alaska Head Start Program for fiscal year 1999. The report begins with a description of the Head Start program and its core values, and delineates the administrative and program partners of Head Start, its service population, eligibility requirements, funding sources, service models, and…

This report analyzes education in Minnesota. After a brief introduction in chapter 1, chapter 2 reviews educational accountability at the national and state levels and the development of Minnesota's own assessment and accountability system. This review not only leads to recommended next steps in that assessment and accountability system, it also…

The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1994 includes explicit requirements to ensure that students served by its Title I are given the same opportunity to achieve high standards and are held to the same high expectations as all students in each state. By the spring of 2000, states should be prepared to submit evidence…

This paper addresses opportunities and issues related to the use of the World Wide Web and high-speed networks as a delivery vehicle for training educators who are geographically dispersed. The benefits and potential pitfalls of using networks as educational platforms are explored from the perspective of various systems specifically being…

Alignment of content standards, performance standards, and assessments is crucial. This guide contains information to assist states and districts in aligning their assessment systems to their content and performance standards. It includes a review of current literature, both published and fugitive. The research is woven together with a few basic…

An increasingly popular approach to addressing child care needs of Americas families is to give state tax credits to employers that provide child care assistance to their employees, thereby permitting the employer to offset part of its child care expenditures against its state tax liability. Currently, 28 states have such tax credits, and a…

This document is the fifth in a series of biennial reports on appropriations for developmental education in Texas. Overall general revenue appropriations for developmental education increased from $182.8 million in the 2000-2001 biennium to $184.8 million in the 2002-2003 biennium. Appropriations in the 1998-1999 biennium were $38.5 million. From…

This report poses four important questions for states about their students' readiness and answers these questions using data from ACT and College Board reports. Clarifying the issues of college readiness that confront member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) should provide states with tools for current and future policy…

This paper makes the case that mandated tests, such as those administered through a state's accountability system, can best meet the goal of curricular reform by making their domains of learning targets transparent to users. Test maps are proposed as an effective device to accomplish that goal. A test map describes the content of the test and how…

This report card contains information on the status of public education in Alaska. Data are organized around the four key elements of the Alaska Quality Schools Initiative: (1) high standards and assessments; (2) quality professional standards; (3) family, school, business, and community networks; and (4) school excellence standards. A statewide…