This handbook contains everything needed to prepare instructional materials for conducting a PLACES (Parents Learning to Assist Children in the Elementary School) workshop. The handbook contains three sections. The Participant Manual (composed of all left-facing pages) consists of materials needed for the four sessions (17 activities) of the…

This booklet, the second in a series of four volumes on the Designing a Curriculum (Dacum) process, is intended to familiarize prospective Dacum workshop participants with the goals and procedures of the workshop. The first section of the booklet comprises a description of a Dacum workshop as a means of bringing together educators and employers to…

Designed for use by vocational counselors with parents of junior high students, this handbook includes activities written in English and Spanish covering parental influence in vocational choices. The first of three sections discusses increasing parental involvement in vocational education. Section II begins with advice for implementation of such a…

The South Carolina Comprehensive Career Guidance Program provides a framework for local districts to evolve a program that meets the specific career development needs of their district's elementary through high school students. The model provides students with the information and experience necessary to develop competencies that will help them…

The eight studies contained in this volume complete the effort pursued by the National Middle School Association to provide practitioners with some of the research available from the recent past. Research briefs deal with such topics as teacher attitudes; the degree of middle school program implementation; gifted students' and educable mentally…

This leader's guide is part of a multi-media curriculum package aimed at informing students in grades 6 through 9 about women's work prospects and problems and new opportunities for women in nontraditional occupations; it is also designed to help students engage in school activities to explore skilled trade and technical fields. The first section…

A literature review examined educational research on school reform and vocational and technical education. The first area examined student risk factors in education, the state of the art in secondary vocational education (career and technical education or CTE), and the interplay of these new forms of CTE and other comprehensive school reform…

This report covers the activities of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) from October 1, 2002, to September 30, 2003. In addition to describing OCR's civil rights compliance program, the report demonstrates how OCR is able to make a real difference in the lives of students. 2004 marks a special year in America's…

This report describes a low-cost, adaptable methodology for assessment of basic learning competencies (BLCs) in diverse cultural contexts. Following the introduction, section 2 provides a policy framework and covers priority populations; policy and assessment needs; challenges for policy-driven assessments; and questions policymakers might have.…

This volume features the reform journeys of six American high schools. The six high schools portrayed here include four large comprehensive high schools (Oakland Technical High in Oakland, California, and Brighton High in Boston, Massachusetts, are urban; Sir Francis Drake in Marin County, California, and Rex Putnam in North Clackamas, Oregon, are…

This report discusses the place of preservice and inservice teacher education in the needs of gifted children, outlines the role of the gifted education specialist, and discusses the competencies that gifted education specialists should have. It begins by providing a joint statement of core beliefs and goals related to giftedness and the…

This is a report on the National Articulation and Transfer Network (NATN) program, which seeks to increase the achievement and aspirations of students from underserved population, namely African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. More than 150 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), and…

Six of the first vocational education (VE) programs to adopt new voluntary national skill standards were studied to identify the opportunities and challenges faced by VE programs adopting the new standards. The VE programs studied were located in high schools in seven cities: Chalmette and Walker, Louisiana; Chicago, Illinois; L'Anse Creuse,…

In December 2000, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) was awarded a five-year research and development (R&D) contract to develop and refine a systemic model to improve student achievement in reading or mathematics in low-performing districts and schools. At the onset of the project, 20 districts in Arkansas, Louisiana, New…

The move to providing flexible delivery of university subjects and courses urged by government policy raises a number of issues for support staff. Whatever "flexible learning" might mean, there are hardware, software, training and attitudinal issues which are central to the work of support staff. This paper will address some of the…