This paper is a transcript of a letter written by the author, Cornelia M. Ashby, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, to June St. Clair Atkinson, State Superintendent of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. In this letter, the author reports that she and her colleagues have examined the efforts of selected…

Investigations of the problem types used in college-level general chemistry examinations have been reported in this Journal and were first reported in the "Journal of Chemical Education" in 1924. This study extends the findings from general chemistry to the problems of four college-level organic chemistry courses. Three problem…

Adult learning is alive in many forms. Whether it is helping to improve literacy and numeracy or to prepare people for returning to work, it is clear that, at its best, adult learning brings considerable value to learners and to the wider community. Individuals, their families and the nation as a whole benefit from enhanced social and technical…

Composite indicators (CIs) have increasingly been accepted as a useful tool for benchmarking, performance comparisons, policy analysis and public communication in many different fields. Several recent studies show that as a data aggregation technique in CI construction the weighted product (WP) method has some desirable properties. However, a…

"The State of Preschool 2017" is the 15th edition of the National Institute for Early Education Research's (NIEER) annual report tracking state-funded preschool access, resources, and quality. Since 2002, many states have made progress, a few have fallen behind, and a handful have emerged as leaders. As a result, disparities in access to…

The UK English subject benchmark statements express the discipline's commitment to contribute to an "ideal of lifelong learning." In this article, I consider what this commitment may mean for practice and explore why its attainment is complex and contentious. In doing so, I examine some of the ways in which lecturers' professional…

As a result of this research, a quantitative model and a procedure have been developed to create an online mentoring effectiveness index (EI). To develop the model, mentoring and teaching effectiveness are defined, and then the constructs and factors of effectiveness are identified. The model's construction is based on the theory that…

Many two-year colleges throughout the nation are intentionally redesigning developmental education programming and practices directed at improving student preparedness and success. Theoretical works from Bloom and Knowles have established that the affective domain is significant to learner preparedness and eventual success, specifically for adult…

Enrollment is rising across the nation's community colleges, but completion rates remain untenably low. Reformers are focusing on the importance of using comprehensive, high-quality data on student progress and completion to bring about change. A core tenet of Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count has been to embed a culture of…

Student achievement in literacy and mathematics for students involved in a Spanish language program at a large and diverse school district in Arkansas, were compared to peers' scores who did not participate in the program. The program was implemented to enroll native English speaking students in a Spanish enrichment program (SEP) with the intent…

Scaling up good corporate social investment practices in developing countries is crucial to realizing the "Education for All" and "Millennium Development Goals". Yet very few corporate social investments have the right mix of vision, financing, cross-sector engagement and leadership to come to scale. Globally, 67 million…

"Louisiana Believes” embraces the principle that all children can achieve at high levels, as evidenced in Louisiana's recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). "Louisiana Believes" also promotes the idea that Louisiana's educators should be empowered to make decisions to support the success of their students. In…

Serving 20,000 students annually, College Now is the nation's largest urban dual enrollment program and represents the primary programmatic partnership between The City University of New York (CUNY) and the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). College Now's mission is to promote college awareness and strengthen the academic preparation…

As institutions seek to promote student engagement, the National Survey of Student Engagement has become a measure commonly used to document how institutions are meeting educational goals, but there is some question as to its applicability for certain undergraduate populations. 2010 survey results were analyzed for 125 adult and 69 traditional-age…

A primary difficulty with music performance assessment is managing its subjective nature. To help improve objectivity, rubrics can be used to develop a set of guidelines for clearly assessing student performance. Moreover, rubrics serve as documentation for student achievement that provides music teachers with a written form of accountability.…