Children in Liberia receive 2.2 learning-adjusted years of schooling, one of the lowest levels of educational attainment in the world. We study one approach to address low enrollment and low rates of learning: a 10-month accelerated learning program run by the Luminos Fund to help out-of-school children catch up to grade level. We conducted a…

The purpose of this study was to identify if a relationship existed between the implementation of professional evaluation processes and the use of research-based teaching practices, factoring in both perceptions of principals and practicing teachers. The variables of professional development on the evaluation model and the principal's years of…

Aimhigher was discontinued on 31 July 2011. This paper reviews the literature analysing its contribution to widening participation to higher education in the UK. Successes of Aimhigher are considered alongside its challenges; particularly the necessity to situate policy within the diverse demands of 42 areas covering England. These issues are…

Landscape work is dangerous. In the Southeast, Hispanic workers predominate in landscape industries. The incidence of functional illiteracy in this group of workers is high. A pictorial knowledge-based evaluation instrument was developed to measure the effectiveness of the trainings. No reading skills were required to take the evaluation. The…

The Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) is working to comply with the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006 (Perkins) to ensure that its graduates have mastered the technical skills needed by business and industry. The legislation requires that each state identify and approve program assessment strategies…

Aimhigher is a key government initiative to widen participation in higher education (HE). This article contributes to addressing a gap in the widening participation literature by measuring the effect of Aimhigher on compulsory schooling attainment, HE applications and HE entries. The research employs a new method based on multiple regression…

The school accountability movement has led to a marked increase in the use of standardized test scores to measure school and teacher productivity, yet little is known about the correlation between test score gains and improvements in long-term outcomes. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I study the impact of a school choice policy in…

This paper addresses methodological issues arising from an experimental study of North Carolina's Early College High School Initiative, a four-year longitudinal experimental study funded by Institute for Education Sciences. North Carolina implemented the Early College High School (ECHS) Initiative in response to low high school graduation rates.…

Most studies focus on the effects of charter attendance on short-term student achievement (test scores), using either data sets that follow students over time or random assignment via school admission lotteries to control for differences between students in charter and traditional public schools. Beyond measuring achievement effects, however,…

Latest research on the mental health status of children indicates that schools are key providers of mental health services (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003). The push for school mental health services has only increased as stakeholders have begun to recognize the significance of sound mental health as an essential part of…

In many education systems, young peoples' "disaffection" is increasingly equated with non-participation in education, training and employment. There is also an expectation that educational activity can provide a key response to this situation. Drawing upon a case study of a successful development project based in Bristol, England which…

The vast amount of research conducted on student persistence over the past thirty years is indicative of the continuing and evolving interest in retention of students. Framed through multiple perspectives, this retention research is driven by the fact that more students leave institutions without graduating, year after year. Much more than an…

Leadership, professional and other transferable skills are embedded in the expected attributes of Australian research postgraduates at the successful completion of their degrees. This paper reports on the development of an evaluation process for a postgraduate transferable skills program at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Existing and…

Background/Context: Although the importance of facilitating transfer from community colleges to 4-year institutions is almost universally accepted, there is little consensus on how to measure transfer success or evaluate policies aimed at assisting students in making this educational transition. Despite the increasing attention on transfer in…

The New Community Schools initiative was introduced in Scotland in 1998 with the aims of improving participation, raising achievement, improving health and transforming communities. The success of the initiative was evaluated in terms of the stated aims. In relation to improving participation and raising achievement, this was straightforward:…