Offers points for consideration by both school boards and charter-school advocates. Important elements of a successful charter school include vision, hands-on administrators, a commitment to staff development, and founders who also serve as maintainers. (LMI)

Describes a national advocacy campaign to preserve funding for specialized services for older people with visual impairments. Outlines steps for developing a similar campaign, including: identifying critical issues, identifying key decision makers, developing a clear message, determining desired results, identifying potential advocates, and…

Too often, bullying goes undetected as victims suffer silently. Most anti-bullying programs must be strengthened to reduce or eliminate the quiet, sneaky bullying falling under adults' radar. Thus, there is a need to create a safe environment for children both above and below that radar. In this article, the author discusses the importance of…

Evaluation inarguably takes place within social, cultural, historical, economic, and political contexts--the contexts defined by human existence and experience. These contexts envelope many dimensions. Race, ethnicity, language, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation are among the commonly listed demographic attributes of contextual…

This booklet focuses on the role of interagency agreements in facilitating the transition of young children and their families from early intervention services to preschool services as children turn 3 years of age. Interagency agreements can be viewed as an "invisible brace" supporting families and staff as they consider many issues in moving from…

This document comprises the Virginia State University (VSU) Campus Alcohol and Drug Policies and Procedures booklet; a program design for a VSU drug education, treatment, and prevention program; and a drug and alcohol student survey. The booklet covering policies and procedures contains: a message from the president; a policy statement; a review…

The paper represents the Office of Education's first comprehensive conceptual statement on career education. It discusses such aspects of career education as conditions for educational reform, a rationale, a definition, basic concepts, programatic assumptions, initial implementation of career education tasks, learner outcomes, and educational…

To assure accountability to educational policy developed by elected and appointed leaders, agencies and organizations must adopt high quality evaluation designs tailored to meet three basic tenets: (1) different processes for policy formation and demonstration of accountability; (2) clear accountability expectations built into policies; (3)…

This paper offers guidelines for policy makers who are responsible for establishing incentive programs for teachers. It provides a framework for: (1) identifying performance-based incentive systems; (2) examining their underlying assumptions; (3) classifying program operations (types of incentives, methods of reward delivery, timing and types of…

Project Follow Through involved a diverse and major set of implementation problems: (1) The initial program mandate for an action program clashed with the later switch to an experimental focus; (2) The selection of curriculum rather than structural changes as the major intervention led to greater uncertainty regarding the practices to be…

The paper reviews the training need by professionals in the allied health services for work with handicapped children and youth. The American Society of Allied Health Professionals (ASAHP) has conducted workshops in which roles and responsibilities for allied health personnel were identified, such as helping to coordinate health, education, and…

The paper reviews international research on computer assisted learning (CAL) for special populations and examines the issue in terms of the Canadian policy perspective. Data collection techniques included interviews and field observations with researchers, manufacturers, and policy makers. A generic model is proposed for special education computer…

Study goals were to identify and evaluate the impact of fellowships awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts to visual artists and to provide information to help the Endowment in planning, policy development, and resource allocation for the fellowship category. Information was collected in three ways. Questionnaires were sent to 50% of all…

The State Planning System (SPS) is presented in the context of a mathematical model used to generate information about the possible impacts of postsecondary education policy decisions. Section I provides an introduction to modeling in higher education management, identifies some current postsecondary education modeling efforts, offers some…

The guide, based upon Vocational Education of Handicapped Students: A Guide for Policy Development by S. Davis and M. Ward, is intended to help local education agency (LEA) administrators and supervisors conduct evaluation and needs assessment of vocational education programs, policies, and procedures related to handicapped students. Each of eight…