The "29th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2007" focuses on key state performance data in accordance with recommendations of the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education. Volume 1 focuses on the children and students being served under "IDEA"…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "Measuring What Matters": Report Evaluates States' Progress on Developing High-Quality Data Systems; (2)…

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between…

Based on the results of a generalizability study (G study) of measures of teacher knowledge for teaching mathematics developed at The National Center for Research, on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at the University of California, Los Angeles, this report provides evidence that teachers are better at drawing reasonable…

The authors have created a software system called the CAVEman, for the visual integration and exploration of heterogeneous anatomical and biomedical data. The CAVEman can be applied for both education and research tasks. The main component of the system is a three-dimensional digital atlas of the adult male human anatomy, structured according to…

In this study, we assessed small and large group discussions and repeated writing assignments with the intent to objectively measure the values of these learning pedagogies. We crafted a model where students researched a question, formulated a written answer, discussed it with their peers, and revised their answers. Then, we did it with repetition…

The evolution of the internet has made online portals a popular means of surfing the internet. In internet commerce, understanding the post-adoption behaviour of users of online portals can help enterprises to attract new users and retain existing customers. For predicting continued use intentions, this empirical study focused on applying and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how Nigeria's current Universal Basic Education on primary schooling targets Muslim "Almajiri" street boys for basic literacy acquisition. The paper examines the policy's management implementation practices and challenges, as well as provides policy options that may minimize discrepancies for…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the learning that takes place when people with disabilities interact in a rehabilitation context. Data were generated through in-depth interviews and close observations in a 2 one-half week-long rehabilitation program, where the participants learned both wheelchair skills and adapted physical…

In this paper, we examine how students discuss and interpret data and whether these actions vary depending on the type of data they analyse. More specifically, we are interested in whether students perform differently when analysing first-hand data, which they collect themselves, compared with second-hand data provided to them. Our data analysis…

A school principal's job has never been tougher. The accountability movement--culminating with the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2001--has put pressure on principals to improve student performance, resulting in school leaders' transitioning from a more administrative role to becoming more heavily involved in assessment, instruction,…

This chapter describes several examples of institutional use of state- and college-level tracking data to benchmark performance, improve student success, and enhance program effectiveness.

This chapter introduces four new data tools that broaden student tracking coverage and add statistical indicators and visual images of employment patterns. (Contains 2 exhibits.)

Conventional physics laboratory courses generally include an emphasis on increasing students' ability to carry out data analysis according to scientific practice, in particular, those aspects that relate to measurement uncertainty. This study evaluates the efficacy of the conventional approach by analyzing the understanding of measurement of…

Many public university systems rely on their own institutional research (IR) offices, in addition to the IR offices from their member institutions, to help conduct the work of the university system. In this chapter, the author illustrates the type of work conducted by system-level IR offices using a nontraditional data source that can be used to…