The importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has gained national attention in recent years, with educators, policymakers, and others advocating for greater participation and enhanced performance in STEM in order to bolster the U.S. economy and provide greater national security. This brief summarizes several pieces of…

This study was conducted to determine the success for the diffusion of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) white paper Framing the Future: Reforming Intercollegiate Athletics. The Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ) and personal interviews were utilized to collect data and purposeful sampling was used to identify one NCAA Division…

In this article, teachers' sense-making and reasoning about higher education reforms in a post Soviet country, namely Armenia, are examined using an analytical framework with six sensitising concepts: beliefs, emotions, attitudes, change knowledge, attributions and organisational culture. The results of semi-structured interviews with 12 Armenian…

Socio-environmental projects involving Arab and Jewish youth in Israel are uncommon. In this study, we interviewed 16 adult leaders of two projects that were carried out in the Galilee in northern Israel, to better understand the views of the leaders and their motives. The two projects focused on mutual environmental issues and dealt with social,…

A qualitative research project was carried out in order to explore the views of Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) and mainstream school staff regarding the process of re-integration of secondary school age pupils from the PRU to mainstream school. The views of 11 PRU staff members, six mainstream staff members and a member of the Behaviour Support Service…

This article reports the findings from a case study of urban school district effectiveness taken from a larger, multistate study. The case study district, Galena Park Independent School District in Galena Park, Texas, was chosen for inclusion in the study based on quantitative analysis of student achievement data in Texas. An education production…

Over 20 years ago, Robert J. Barak and Barbara E. Breier suggested incorporating a regular assessment of the entire program review system into the review schedule in order to ensure that the system itself is as efficient and effective as the programs under review. Barak and Breier's seminal book on the goals and processes of program review has…

There are few instances in the literature on urban school reform that have closely studied specific school buildings to describe the grant resource appropriation process. This study attempts to fill that gap by developing case studies of two middle schools with divergent profiles in resource utilization through micro-ethnographies. One school…

Although many educational practices are being modified to meet the needs of all learners within elementary schools, there is a paucity of research and resources that explore the essential knowledge base and application of response to intervention within secondary settings. The purpose of this investigation was to explore (a) how important high…

This is a case study of the implementation of state STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) policy over the period of the first 18 months of building a regional STEM partnership. Fullan's change theory is the framework used to determine progress and associated challenges with building a regional STEM educational partnership and…

Polytechnic education in Ghana is an offshoot of technical and vocational education and training, which makes internship a sine qua non for its students. The implementation of internships in the departments of hotel catering and institutional management in Ghanaian polytechnics is examined in this study. The perceptions of the stakeholders suggest…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve public education and student achievement. This report provides a summary of findings from SREB's research into the efforts of 15 states--12 in the Southern Educational Research Board (SREB) region--to support…

The increasing number of special education-related lawsuits has become costly, time-consuming, and a strain on school-community relations--in short, an issue of growing concern to U. S. school systems. To identify factors associated with this type of litigation, this study analyzed data from one state's 10-year experience with due process special…

Perceptions play a significant role in an individual's decision-making. This paper reports on a study that investigated primary school science teachers' perceptions of their school district professional development and its basis and impact on the teacher development process in a large district in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. From the…

The first article in this special issue is about the doctoral programs, the suppliers of new doctoral graduates in special education. It focuses on one component of a larger effort, the Special Education Faculty Needs Assessment (SEFNA) project, which investigated many aspects of the supply of new doctoral graduates as well as the demand for new…