In the last 20 years, Early School Leaving (ESL) in Portugal has registered a significant decrease. In order to understand the reasons for this trend towards improvement, this paper conducts an analysis of anti-ESL measures implemented in diverse educational institutions. The main objective is to understand how mainstream and alternative education…

There is an ongoing discussion about teacher education today: its organisation, its academic status and the competence that results from different programmes. There is no one best way to organise teacher education. Rather, the appropriateness of organisation is related to the desired aims. In this article, we discuss one way to organise and…

Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB's) "High Schools That Work" ("HSTW") initiative works with more than 1,100 schools in 30 states and the District of Columbia to improve school and classroom practices and prepare more students for success in postsecondary studies, advanced training and careers. Forty-nine Arkansas…

This module is the third section of a four-part how-to manual for integrating curriculum in grades K-12, especially in Missouri. The module outlines step-by-step procedures for integrated units, integrated years, and integrated schools. Comments from teachers, students, and administrators who are actively involved in integration in Missouri…

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act broadens the meaning of curriculum by calling for integrated learning organized into coherent sequences around broadly conceived career majors. Work experience, as well as academic and occupational study, is an assumed element of the integrated school-to-work curriculum. A variety of strategies for curriculum…

This implementation guide is designed to provide practical, useful help to vocational and academic teachers, administrators, and support personnel in integrated academic and vocational instruction. The introduction defines integration, discusses assessment of the status of current programs and the assumptions underlying integration, and presents…

Building effective school-to-work systems requires evaluation, usually incorporating both process and outcome evaluations. Increasingly, school-to-work systems are conducting self-evaluations or hiring evaluation teams to determine how effectively the system is designed and implemented and whether it is achieving its purposes for students and the…

This document is intended to assist members of Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) technical assistance teams who are making site visits for the purpose of helping high school leaders and teachers identify the changes needed to achieve the High Schools That Work goal of improved student achievement through blending high-level academic and…

An evaluation study is being conducted to determine the impact of the Washington state legislature's 3-year investment of $2.55 million to enable schools to plan and implement a school-to-work transition program (STW). The key components of the evaluation consist of a written survey of the 33 STW coordinators in the state and case study site…

This combination literature review and guide is designed to provide classroom teachers, administrators, and teacher educators with practical information on the best academic and vocational education integration practices described in the literature. Section 1 examines the rationale for integrating academic and vocational education and summarizes…

An evaluation study was conducted to determine the impact of the Washington state legislature's 3-year investment of $2.55 million in a School-to-Work Transition Program (STW). The key components of the evaluation consist of a written survey of the 33 STW coordinators in the state, case study visits to 10 communities throughout the state engaged…

This guide is designed to provide information about successful administrative and instructional practices and the models used to integrate academic and vocational education in Florida schools. It is divided into seven chapters, including a summary and conclusions section. The first chapter discusses various Florida initiatives. Outlined next are…

This report, which is directed toward policymakers, educators, employers, researchers, and others interested in the school-to-work (STW) movement, synthesizes literature on the development and effectiveness of STW programs since 1993. Part I provides an overview of the STW movement and examines the effectiveness of STW efforts in terms of…

This document profiles the diverse approaches to tech-prep taken by 10 local districts across the United States. The tech-prep programs in the following cities are profiled: Dayton, Ohio; Dothan, Alabama; East Peoria, Illinois; Fresno, California; Gainesville, Florida; Hartford, Connecticut; Logan, West Virginia; Salem, Oregon; Springdale,…

This book explains the process of designing, developing, and implementing cooperative apprenticeship, a form of structured workplace training in which an employer, employer group, or industry, union or other community-based organization joins forces with a vocational-technical school and/or community college to provide formal instruction that…