An 18-month, 3-phase study examined formal employer-sponsored basic skills instruction in small- and medium-sized firms. Data were gathered through the following methods: in-depth case studies of 72 small and medium firms in 5 states, a series of linked national surveys of 11,000 randomly selected firms, follow-up telephone surveys of 4,317 of…

This paper describes Project ABLE (Academic Bridges to Learning Effectiveness), a program of the Longview Community College in Kansas City, Missouri, to provide college students with learning disabilities or brain injuries with the skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace. Each student in the program takes a basic core of classes…

An evaluation was conducted of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI), a program that aims to improve the skills of young people in Scotland to enable them to be effective, enterprising, and capable at work. The evaluation looked at the extent to which TVEI had enhanced the acquisition of certain key skills (communicating,…

A follow-up study and evaluation were done on the effect of an annual 4-week academically intensive program for 50 St. Louis (Missouri) area high school junior and senior students. The program consists of two summers, the first offering general scientific experience and education, and the second providing students with the chance to conduct…

Open Doors is a family literacy program that was developed to provide basic literacy training and basic skills remediation for homeless single mothers who have not completed high school and developmental enrichment services for their infants and toddlers. Open Doors was designed to provide interventions to 30 families. The program featured…

This paper discusses program evaluation as a condition for the receipt of federal funds under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It focuses on some actual and potential linkages between effectiveness or outcome evaluation, implementation evaluation, compliance monitoring, and the concepts of program improvement and…

Project Opportunity is designed to provide a bridge curriculum for women who choose to enter nontraditional vocational education and training that will furnish marketable skills to low-income women, single parents, displaced homemakers, young pregnant women, and near-homeless women. A total of 45 women were chosen to participate in the 1993-94…

Families in urban areas struggle with drug abuse, poverty, increasing housing costs, and lack of affordable child care. The challenges confronting urban schools include a higher dropout rate, higher youth unemployment, and the need to address a variety of special needs of their student population, such as programs for pregnant students, dropouts,…

This report presents the findings of a study conducted for the U.S. Department of Education that analyzed 17 family education programs for disadvantaged families. In-depth studies were conducted on-site for 7 programs; an additional 10 programs were studied via telephone interviews. An "Executive Summary" of eleven pages (also separately…

The effectiveness of a peer leadership program connecting senior high school students with at-risk, new eighth-graders in seven Atlanta (Georgia) high schools is evaluated. The program trains the peer leaders in leadership and group dynamics and then places pairs of leaders with 10 or 12 advisees for weekly meetings. The study population includes…

By January of the 1991-92 school year, 428 children were being served by the Chapter 1 Prekindergarten Program of the Saginaw, Michigan school district. A process evaluation was conducted to monitor the program and assess whether the program was being implemented as planned. The process evaluation for this year consisted of a half-day classroom…

Views of former adult literacy students about their learning experience were ascertained in a study. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 68 former students from 2 adult literacy programs in the Inner West of Sydney (Australia). A literature review focused on the following topics: characteristics of adult basic education (ABE) students;…

This paper evaluates the Required Academic Proficiency tutorial program, implemented in the Houston (Texas) Independent School District (HISD) to reduce academic failure. Students are eligible for the program if they are failing (scoring lower than 70 on a scale of 100). A total of 14,748 students, eligible and non-eligible, attended the tutorials…

This paper describes cooperative learning strategies, their research base, and the rationale for their use as an instructional process for low English proficiency students (LEPS). The paper examines seven components of effective implementation of cooperative learning with language-minority students, and reports on preliminary work on a 5-year…

A study evaluated the relative pedagogical and cost effectiveness of training programs for international teaching assistants (ITAs) that are conducted before and within the academic year. Both program types were established at the University of Illinois during the academic year 1989-90, with similar content, the same number of contact hours, the…