The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI) periodically assesses the needs of early childhood and K-12 students and educators regarding literacy instruction. These periodic assessments assist NDDPI with meeting the needs of educators and the students they serve through grants and other programs and opportunities. This report reviews…

For many districts, the improvement process can seem like trying to nail Jello to the wall. This fieldbook shows how to avoid a haphazard approach by focusing on all aspects of the system and specific issues that have most impact upon student achievement. This multidimensional process also entails increasing the competencies of everyone involved…

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a community of educators to improve a school--a community that includes administrators and teachers in different, but equally important, roles. A district's changes can only show results once their improvements reach the classroom. At the same time, teachers need support from their districts to…

Recently, there has been growing interest in adapting Return-on-Investment thinking to education--sometimes called educational productivity, or academic-ROI. Education leaders do not seek a monetary return on their spending, rather greater student learning, or other outcomes like student citizenship, higher graduation rates, or increased lifetime…

This paper deals with a possible way of separating six modes of needs assessment (Kaufman, 1972) into two types. The most common, internal, looks at needs from within the organization, and external needs assessment looks at needs from the outside of the organization doing the study. (VT)

Examines the educational planning process. Discusses what planning is, how methodological planning can work in education, misunderstandings about planning, and difficulties in applying the planning methodology. (DN)

A needs assessment is a procedure or process that identifies the perceived or expressed needs of a school district. The process involves the use of various measurements and activities to obtain the data needed to define the gap between "what is" and "what should be." This handbook reviews four such processes or models for…

This investigation of the missing link between educators' demands for planning tools and successful implementation of such tools once they became available identified the link as users' attitudes toward a proposed system approach model for the identification, design, delivery, evaluation, and renewal of purposeful change. (MBR)

This booklet describes the Independent Educational Management Audit (IEMA), a systems approach to educational management that is intended to help school systems plan for the most effective use of available resources, in terms of specific educational outcomes. Through an emphasis on needs assessment, IEMA is designed to (1) help identify and remove…

Latin American countries have a long history in the application of educational technology to the improvement of teacher education. Even though past innovations, such as the Multinational Project on Educational Technology have been successful, there are still problems with the quality of teacher education. Apparently, processes have been improved…

A method to assist in curriculum planning and its application at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine is presented. Content elements appropriate for inclusion in a family medicine curriculum for medical students are identified. Priorities were assigned to content elements. (Author/MLW)

This speech addresses the problem of higher education's response to the forces of change and argues for a reinventing of higher education rather than repeatedly amending core teaching and research activities to fit new social and economic situations. Three higher education organizational dynamics (recruitment, budgeting, and handling outside…

This pamphlet is second in a series describing the Management Organization Systems Technique (MOST), whose essential function is to determine the goals and objectives of the college and then to assist management in the attainment and evaluation of them. The planning subsystem, central to this process, begins with a determination of the needs of…

The content of this paper is based on a development plan currently in design for the U.S. Navy in conjunction with the Learning Systems Institute at Florida State University. Leading research (literature review) references and case study ("best practice") references are presented as supporting evidence for the results-oriented…

In the past management information systems (MIS) have focused on data relating to the internal operations of the institution (e.g., registration and space utilization). Recently, however, strategic planning as a means of establishing long-range goals is becoming increasingly dependent upon data external to the institution, such as demographics and…