This document is from a featured presentation at the 2018 annual conference of the Science Teachers Association of Texas (STAT). The public schools are a fundamental element of our democratic society, and they have been the pathway to opportunity and a better life for generations of Americans. But at present, the American public school system is…

Academic program life cycle concept states each program's life flows through several stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. A mixed-influence diffusion growth model is fitted to enrolment data on academic programs to analyze the factors determining progress of academic programs through their life cycles. The regression analysis yield…

Educational management wants to comprehend the uses of ICT in Education to get a grip on its effects due to the multiple annual investments in the Virtual Learning Environment. In the search to define educational parameters a vast amount of datasets is examined from 289 institutes using Blackboard. The focus is on the three dimensions growth,…

This paper describes the development and validation of a school-accountability model. The model is based on the assumption that schools represent dynamic systems in which a change in one element will affect all other elements. The model's primary elements are educational input, processes, and outcomes. The paper examines various accountability…

This presentation identifies one of four kinds of evaluation--impact evaluation--existing today for career education programs. Impact evaluation provides four essential sets of information: (1) all data necessary to determine if a program should be continued; (2) a determination of which alternative program achieves the greatest gains at a given…

The Maryland Accountability Program (MAP), initiated in response to 1972 state legislation, has been planned and implemented to promote an understanding of the relationship among the quality of education, the characteristics of educational programs, the process of education and needed and available human and material resources, and, on the basis…

This is the final report on the background and proceedings of the Regional Meeting of Experts on Environmental Education in Africa, convened by UNESCO with the collaboration of the University of Brazzaville. This meeting was one of five similar ones held throughout the world as a follow-up to the UNESCO Conference held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.…

This paper details the development and implementation of a feedback system designed to provide information to various strata of decision makers. Data were collected in each of eight city districts in the following areas of reading achievement: mastery of upper and lower case letters, mastery of phonic skills, level of sight vocabulary and…

The author argues that, while substantial problems exist in the comprehensiveness, cost, and complexity of an evaluation system for performance assessment, the effort should be undertaken and problems attacked and solved as they arise. Three questions are investigated in describing the current state of performance assessment: (1) What are the…

This paper reports an overview of Project FOLLOW-UP, whose purpose was to develop, test, and validate a statewide management information system for follow-up of Texas public junior and community college students. The system designed is for use by machine or manual processing and is thus useful to small and large institutions while interfacing with…

The following points are made in discussing the practical and political problems involved in implementing a teaching evaluation system for rewarding and improving instructional effectiveness. (1) We have an obligation to put a higher priority on teaching than we have done so far. (2) Any evaluation system should be tied to a strong system for…

This is the final report on the background and proceedings of the Regional Meeting on Environmental Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, convened jointly by UNESCO and the United Nations Environmental Program. The goal of this regional meeting was to examine the problems of the environment within the region, and to recommend lines for…

The Bay Area Comer Development Program's "Readiness Five Phase Plan" was developed to bring the school sites involved in the Bay Area School Development Program (SDP) closer to the mission and goals of the program. To achieve this, a readiness assessment and checklists are used to determine if a site is ready to engage in the program. An…

The paper examines varieties of program assessment in institutions of higher education and proposes a procedure to implement systematic assessment of program outcomes. Presented in a question-and-answer format, the paper first addresses common faculty concerns about formal assessment in sections titled, "Why Not Use GPA (Grade Point Average)?" and…

Students at the University Without Walls (UWW) of the University of Minnesota design their own program by writing a Long Term Degree Plan to describe how they plan to demonstrate their competence in each of UWW's seven graduation criteria. Because students have experienced difficulty in writing the plan, a seminar in process education was…