For over 40 years, Hodgkinson has confronted education demographics problems. He explains his major concerns; shifting views on standards and assessment; effects of students' home backgrounds; need for curriculum diversity; and the misleading notion of monolithic leadership. Now is the worst time for a uniform standards movement. (MLH)

Before undertaking a school construction or renovation project, administrators should plan carefully, collect adequate data, involve the school board, form a building committee, understand legalities, select the right architect, consult with technology director, monitor the construction site, enjoy short-lived trouble-free times; and document…

Describes three-step process principals can use to collect and compile student test data from teachers on a regular basis: Asking for test data; deciding what to ask for; and supervising the data-reporting process. Asserts that data-collection process will benefit teachers' classroom practices and student achievement. (PKP)

Defines the heuristic model of research. Offers a comparison among phenomenology, hermeneutics, and heuristics in research methodologies. Describes the stages of heuristic research and addresses the potential contributions of this model to the field of art therapy and the personal and professional growth of the art therapist. (MKA)

Explains the Bridge Evaluation Model that illustrates the process and factors that determine the outcome of an evaluation. Highlights include relationships between external factors including goals, interpersonal relationships, ethics, and politics; data collection and collation; and a sidebar that offers a case study involving the evaluation of…

Presents 1999-00 data for 4- and 2-year college administrator's compensation compared to private-sector executives in the area of base salaries. Surveys show college and university administrative salary increases were lower than private-sector raises and lagged behind school district increases, however, schools are increasingly implementing bonus…

Research strategies related to data collection and data analysis were identified through content analysis of 427 articles in three comparative-education journals, published between 1985 and 1995, and 112 articles published between 1964 and 1966. In recent years, the strategies used have become more diverse, the geographic focus of research has…

Discussion of the four-level model of training evaluation focuses on the need for evaluation at level III, to show that training has been effective and that trainees behave differently on the job. Suggests data collection and measurement methods, including pretraining-posttraining evaluation, action plan audits, simulations, and unobtrusive…

Reviews visual anthropology, educational anthropology, and ethnographic filmmaking literature on questions concerning collection of valid video recorded data in the second language context. Examines h an interaction should be video recorded, who should be video recorded, and who should do the recording. Examples illustrate the kinds of research…

This article offers a framework for collecting and analyzing speech samples to evaluate the phonological skills of young children, or of older children with delayed speech. A protocol for phonetic transcription is provided along with a discussion of the use of diacritics. The special problems of transcribing "fuzzy speech" are addressed. (Contains…

A Web site can be the unifying force among schools with in a district. Many approaches work. Anyone who examines a few school district Web sites will appreciate the variation in content and design each provides. For example, Des Moines Iowa Public Schools, a district in which many in the community speak a second language, provides Web content in…

Data in social and behavioral sciences are often hierarchically organized. Special statistical procedures that take into account the dependence of such observations have been developed. Among procedures for 2-level covariance structure analysis, Muthen's maximum likelihood (MUML) has the advantage of easier computation and faster convergence. When…

The collection and use of data are generally accepted as important educational practices. Nevertheless, evidence exists that interventionists' data collection practices tend to be infrequent and nonsystematic. This study investigated the perspectives of early childhood interventionists about the use of data in their classrooms. Perspectives about…

Schools are under great public pressure to improve student performance and report to the public. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools need ways to get timely, useful and important post-graduation information for planning and reporting purposes. Tracking high school graduates can be a time-consuming and frustrating job, especially when it…

This article reports on the increasing attempts to identify what have been dubbed high-flying schools and figure out what makes them tick to bring all students to higher levels of achievement. A free Web site, launched by the New York City-based Standard & Poor's, began providing a tool that enables users to identify schools that do better…