The Austin (Texas) Independent School District conducts survey research as a means of collecting information from people affected by district policies and programs. Some general results are presented for the following surveys: (1) the School Climate Survey; (2) the Office of Research and Evaluation Coordinated Survey; and (3) the Former Student…

In 1980, the Colorado State Legislature passed legislation which enabled 12 southeastern Colorado school districts with enrollments from 30 to 330 to experiment with a 4-day school week as an alternative to reducing programs. Each district was allowed to determine which weekday its schools would not be in session, length of the school day, and…

An extensive Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I data base was developed in order to study the distribution and effect of Title I funds in New Jersey. The information in this data base was then analyzed in conjunction with information concerning reading and mathematics achievement, program adoption, and demography, to determine…

A program of functional literacy, as an integral part of the program of Farmers' Training and Functional Literacy, is presented. Its objectives are: (1) to increase the attainment and use of literacy skills, and (2) to bring about the socio-economic change on the individual with particular emphasis on changes in agricultural production. The…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Senate Approves Budget Plan: Amendment Adds Funds for Education Programs; (2) The Hits Keep Coming: House…

Effective teacher evaluation is at the core of improving the quality and value of education and principals bear the responsibility of implementing a teacher evaluation program that helps develop highly qualified teachers and promotes high academic standards. In this easy-to-use handbook, the authors offer a fresh, innovative look into teacher…

The School District Data Book (SDDB) is an information resource from the National Center of Education Statistics that contains social, economic, and administrative data for each of the 15,274 public school districts (local education agencies, or LEAs) in the United States. This paper addresses the information and capabilities of the SDDB that can…

MDC, Inc.'s Alliance for Achievement was a 4-year school change demonstration aimed at encouraging more students to continue their education beyond high school by linking middle schools, high schools, and community colleges into a unified continuum. Implemented in six southern communities, it focused on increasing minority and low-income student…

Spurred by federal and state mandates for improved performance, school districts across the country have become adept at establishing districtwide goals to raise student achievement. They have identified learning gaps among various student populations and now seek to close them. They have targeted improved performance in reading or math by grade…

At a time when college degrees are increasingly a prerequisite for middle-class wages, less than 40 percent of college students are able to demonstrate proficiency on literacy tests, barely half of college students graduate on time, and many do not graduate at all. At the same time. the price of college continues to increase quickly and…

State activities to collect information on program outcomes for students enrolled in postsecondary vocational education were examined in spring 1990. A multistage process, beginning with a review of state reports and legislation, was followed by telephone interviews with state officials. The average number of respondents per state was five.…

This report presents the detailed results of the compilation of an overview of state activities related to measuring the outcomes of postsecondary vocational education. Chapter I provides background to the study. Chapter II describes the methodology used for the development of the overview, including discussions with experts, the information…

Student behavior analysis is an active research topic in distance education in recent years. In this article, we propose a new method called Boosting to investigate students' behaviors. The Boosting Algorithm can be treated as a data mining method, trying to infer from a large amount of training data the essential factors and their relations that…

The papers presented at this conference review current research on effective educational practices for low-achieving students and identify those that might be applied to programs funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. A function assumed by several conference participants was to act as reactor to papers…

This document is the users' guide for Version 1.0 of the Public-Use data tapes compiled by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1985-86. The Public-Use tapes are produced to allow outside researchers access to the NAEP data. The tapes accompanying this guide, one for grade 3/age 9, one for grade 7/age 13, and one for grade…