In 1985, Washington State Legislature passed a law mandating that each Washington school conduct a self-study by 1990-91 and every seven years thereafter. The intent is to enhance education through school improvement. This manual illustrates a model self-study process and provides a "tool kit" of implementation aids. The first section…

This report describes the changes brought about by Project Redirection in New Jersey's Department of Human Services Division of Developmental Disabilities (formerly the Division of Mental Retardation), which now serves not only persons with mental retardation and autistic adults but also those individuals with developmental disabilities. Reports…

Although Public Law 94-142 (Education for All Handicapped Children Act) raised public awareness of the civil rights of the handicapped, the policy problems that it was intended to solve included more than civil rights issues. In particular, the law did not provide for modifications of its policies in improving public education opportunities for…

The Program Standards Evaluation System was developed in response to evaluation requirements in the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. The system includes procedures for using standards data to monitor and evaluate vocational rehabilitation (VR) service outcomes and outputs as well as standards on key procedural issues. These guidance materials, volume 3 of…

This secondary vocational guidance planning handbook is designed for secondary school personnel who want (1) to start a vocational guidance program, (2) to assess their vocational guidance services, (3) to expand or diversify their vocational guidance services, (4) to gather ideas for new vocational guidance activities. The first of three major…

To ensure significant improvement in individual and organizational managerial effectiveness, the design and implementation of soft-skill management development programs need to address the six factors leading to change resistance and the five critical elements that contribute to success. These factors and elements are discussed in detail. (CT)

The Illinois Board of Higher Education appointed a committee to review health professions education programs in Illinois and directed the committee to assess the educational needs in the health professions and the extent to which Illinois higher education is supplying qualified professionals to meet those needs. The committee also reviewed…

Sketches the Ohio Department of Education strategy for making effective schools, that is, by defining school effectiveness and by citing the general factors influencing the conduct of effective programs. (JW)

In an attempt to understand why the promise of educational innovation has not been realized, educational innovation, its ideological and paradigmatic underpinnings, and the major stages of the innovation process are critically examined. The centrality of power and the generation of correspondence and contradiction as key analytical concepts are…

Describes a Master's of Arts in Writing program which is an attempted reform of the master's degree in English: an experimental curriculum designed to revive rhetorical approaches to the construction and interpretation of literary works. Outlines the program's strengths and the problems that emerged in the first three years. (MG)

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) was developed in response to a California State mandate (SB 2042), requiring teacher preparation programs to use performance assessments as one measure in making credentialing decisions. In this article, results are examined from statewide implementation of the PACT assessments during the…

A school or district's technology education program consists of a series of courses that address standards. Recent trends (e.g., No Child Left Behind), administrative pressures to increase student achievement, or the school's desire to align with standards, challenge the technology education teacher to implement new courses into the technology…

This report summarizes the results from new teacher surveys conducted in the Austin Independent School District during spring 2007. New teachers were asked about activities and support provided by their mentor teachers, their level of implementation of instructional practices, and their professional development needs.

The initiation of the educational records and reports study by the Office of Education in 1951 marked a turning point in the Federal State teamwork approach toward providing a basis for complete, accurate, and comparable educational information. In cooperation with State education agencies and professional groups, three major handbooks of standard…

This article is based on the perceptions of California State University administrators and provides a comparative study of the challenges and benefits resulting from the implementation of the teaching performance assessment requirement of SB 2042 standards 19-21 on the California State University (CSU) campuses. With 23 campuses and almost 450,000…