The Excellent Educators for All initiative is the most recent federal policy effort to address unequal access to teacher quality in the United States. States were required to submit equity plans to the U.S. Department of Education that detailed how to ensure that poor and minority children do not receive instruction from less qualified teachers.…

This guide is designed to help districts and schools evaluate reform efforts related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), including School Improvement Grants. It includes practical, how-to tips for conducting program evaluations, whether one takes a "do-it-yourself" approach or seeks outside assistance to evaluate reform…

The professional development school (PDS) is a model of choice for many teacher preparation programs. This approach integrates the functions of teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student achievement to bring about whole-school improvement and the simultaneous renewal of the teaching profession. Ideally,…

This study was an attempt to document and analyze the national effort of Columbia, South America to resolve its educational problems by the process of organizational and administrative reform. (Author/RK)

This document is the first of a series that will address five stages of the school reform process. It focuses on the first stage of the change process, managing key stakeholders and external groups and engaging them in the planning and development of the reform or innovation. A stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected…

THIS WAS ONE OF FOUR SEMINARS CONDUCTED TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION. OBJECTIVES WERE TO DEVELOP (1) A CONCEPT OF THE ROLE AND THE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN STATE PROGRAMS, (2) AN UNDERSTANDING OF A FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE FOR CONDUCTING A PROGRAM OF…

Levels of use of the innovation represent behaviors demonstrated by individuals as they grow in the process of innovation implementation. Eight levels of use have been defined, ranging from lack of knowledge about the innovation through highly sophisticated, impact-oriented use. Operational definitions include seven categories of adopter knowledge…

This book offers colleges and universities a framework and tools to design an effective and collaborative assessment process appropriate for their culture and institution. It encapsulates the approach that Peggy Maki has developed and refined through the hundreds of successful workshops she has presented nationally and internationally. Maki starts…

This paper describes a method of research to examine the process of effecting educational change through adopting innovative ideas. Twenty-nine elementary teachers in the process of adopting a complex curricular innovation were studied. Because of the complex nature of this process, ordering theory was used as the method for analyzing the adoption…

The focus-group interview format was used to investigate the implementation of the Career Ladders teacher-incentive program in a rural school district in Arizona. Two interviews were planned for each of the following groups: (1) school board members; (2) Career Ladders steering committee; (3) administrators; (4) central office staff; (5) parents;…

The document contains the proceedings of a conference on manpower research at the Federal, State, and local levels. Two papers from the opening general session focus on the interrelationship of economic, demographic, and educational changes based on its effects on occupational education. J. C. Pettinger's keynote speech presented issues regarding…

The experiences of Canadian women in adult basic education and literacy (ABEL) were examined in a national research project during which 2 contact women from each of 12 ABEL programs across Canada spend one-half day each week "researching" their program's "woman-positive" activities and the consequences of those activities for…

Ethnography, a qualitative, small-scale, indepth approach to research developed within the discipline of anthropology, is here explored as a potential strategy in the investigation of issues related to educational governance and policy-making. The first section of the paper defines the term ethnography and discusses characteristics of the…

Among the papers included are the following: "Exploring Literacy through Theater" (Andruske); "Heuristic Research" (Beckstrom); "Self-Direction in Adult Undergraduates" (Blowers); "Commodification of Adult Education" (Briton, Plumb); "Collective Group Learning" (Brooks); "Psychosocial Development of Women" (Caffarella, Barnett); "Writing Wrongs"…

This book, which is intended for policymakers, administrators, and researchers, contains 13 research papers and reviews of the literature on increasing the effectiveness of publicly funded training. The following papers are included: "Publicly Funded Training in a Changing Labor Market" (Burt S. Barnow, Christopher T. King); "The…