This report poses four important questions for states about their students' readiness and answers these questions using data from ACT and College Board reports. Clarifying the issues of college readiness that confront member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) should provide states with tools for current and future policy…

This document offers three articles reporting research and practice on the use of paraeducators to provide support to students with disabilities and their teachers. Emphasis is on research funded by the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. The first article notes the increasing use of paraeducators to provide…

This paper describes the Kentucky Department of Education's (KDE's) multi-faceted approach to professional development and provides evidence for its impact on schools' achievement of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) goals. Data are drawn from the exemplary case study component of a larger research project. Many Kentucky school districts…

This booklet provides information and examples from the Mathematics Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) for elementary levels, given in the spring of 1998. These materials include the released items, anchor papers, and scoring guides. The MAP items consist of constructed responses and performance tasks from the state assessment. Anchor papers were…

This booklet provides information and examples from the Mathematics Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) for intermediate levels, given in the spring of 1998. These materials include the released items, anchor papers, and scoring guides. The MAP items consist of constructed responses and performance tasks from the state assessment. Anchor papers were…

This booklet provides information and examples from the Mathematics Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) for high school levels, given in the spring of 1998. These materials include the released items, anchor papers, and scoring guides. The MAP items consist of constructed responses and performance tasks from the state assessment. Anchor papers were…

This report examines the implementation of standards-based reform in Washington and whether the reform strategy has worked. The report is based on a survey of two statewide samples of elementary schools at which students had taken the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) fourth-grade test in 1997 and 1998. The first was a sample of 30…

This study classifies more than 2,800 public and private four-year and two-year colleges and universities in the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to their "accessibility" to typical residents. Accessibility has two components: admissibility (whether or not a college admits typical college-bound students in the state) and…

This paper discusses the services offered by OhioLINK, a consortia providing a variety of services to a statewide user population of college and university libraries, focusing on the impact of these services on traditional interlibrary loan. The first section describes patron-initiated book requesting. The second section addresses the Electronic…

States increasingly are offering high school students the opportunity to take postsecondary courses for reasons that range from academic to economic. Some states allow students to earn postsecondary credit for postsecondary classes while others do not. In some states, school districts pay the costs of such courses or the tuition is paid from a…

In 1996 the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was replaced with a federal block grant program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which imposed time limits and work requirements on welfare recipients. The welfare legislation placed a lifetime ban on TANF and food stamp benefits for convicted drug felons, although…

This publication contains the final report of the task of the Ohio State Legislative Service Commission (LSC) Study Committee on Job Training and Workforce Development Programs. The task was to review the state's job training and workforce development programs and formulate a plan to centralize the programs under one state agency. Section 1 of the…

The Vermont Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities was developed in order to better provide Vermont students with essential skills and knowledge and to ensure that they leave school able to contribute positively to society. This 13-minute videotape examines how this framework is applied in early care and education settings. The video…

Many states use a statewide assessment strategy to evaluate districts on common measures. Because districts in Nebraska are not measured on common instruments, comparisons of district performance are difficult. The accountability model described in this paper contains three components related to school district performance on academic content…

The focus on raising standards reflects a national trend in which New York State is considered a leader. The new requirements adopted by the State Board of Regents have generally been supported by business leaders and all major educational policy advocacy groups. There are positive signs that achievement is improving, but there is a performance…