The Project on State-Level Child Outcomes was initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to examine the effects on children of waiver policies related to state welfare reform efforts prior to the passage of federal welfare reform legislation. This report details the project's examination of child well-being in the context of…

The author outlines the background, scope, purpose, and methodology of the congressionally mandated Vocational Education Study sponsored by the National Institute of Education. (SK)

Dozens of countries have decentralized at least part of their natural resource policies over the last two decades. Despite the length of time that these policy experiments have been in force, there is little agreement about their effectiveness. We argue that part of this ambivalence stems from three limitations of extant studies, suggesting that…

A Friedman Foundation report attempts to find empirical support for the contention that competition from private schools, through voucher programs, improves the effectiveness of public schools. In the first year of Ohio's new EdChoice voucher program, the report claims to have found substantial academic gains at public schools exposed to the…

Each of the four issues of this newsletter published in 1993 consists of one article dealing with a particular policy debate. Number 1, "Canadian Special Education Policies: Children with Learning Disabilities in a Bilingual and Multicultural Society" (Linda S. Siegel and Judith Wiener), discusses social and cultural factors affecting…

It is argued that judgments in evaluative research are ultimately subjective, but that good criteria are available to assess their quality. One of these criteria is the robustness of the judgments against incompleteness or uncertainty in the data used to describe the educational system. The use of the robustness criterion is demonstrated through…

Obtaining accurate, comprehensive data for vocational education has been one of the more elusive objectives of federal policy. Given the long history of unsuccessful attempts to improve the quality and scope of data on vocational education, it is important to understand the lessons of the past before embarking on a new data collection effort…

This descriptive report summarizes data on students enrolled in the Des Moines Independent Community School District's English as a Second Language (ESL) program for Southeast Asian students. By law the district is required to provide special English instruction for students who have a limited command of English. Goals of the ESL program include:…

Vocational education research and development (R&D) product evaluations are difficult to conduct for several reasons, such as the many types of R&D products, the multiple users of the products with different goals for evaluation, the limited time available, and the high cost. In order to meet these challenges, an internal evaluation team…

In evaluation research studies, it often occurs that several program participants (experimentals) drop out of the program prior to completion. Since noncompleters generally differ substantially from completers in many respects, a control group which originally was representative of the participant group will most likely not be representative of…

Procedures for the evaluation of patient education programs have been slow to evolve; the majority of programs, in fact, remain unevaluated. Patient education efforts, particularly with cancer patients, are effective in enhancing recovery, alleviating anxiety, and facilitating compliance. Patient education should minimize patient dependence on…

Possible causes for the discrepancy between the ABT report on the national Project Follow Through and the Saint Louis, Missouri program were discussed: (1) ABT data were positively biased because of non-random, differential attrition from the program and control groups; (2) positive ABT data were due to use of a particular cohort group; or (3)…

THIS EVALUATION IS CONCERNED WITH THE FIRST YEAR OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VICTORIA PLAN IN A NEWARK, N.J., ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. THE COMPONENTS OF THIS IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM WHICH ARE DISCUSSED ARE CLASS TRIPS AND ASSEMBLIES, THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER, THE NURSERY SCHOOL, AND MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES. MOST OF THE EVALUATION IS DEVOTED TO THE PROBLEMS WHICH…

This report is organized in two volumes: Volume 1--"Executive Summary," and Volume 2--Main Report and Appendices." Volume 1 explains that the purpose of this study was to identify, review, and assess the literature concerned with postsecondary education of disadvantaged youth for internal validity, external validity, and policy utility. The…

The present report constituting "Volume 2--Technical Report" of the study is comprised of the main report and appendixes. For complete abstract, see UD 014 890 (Volume 1--Executive Summary). (JM)