Examines forces motivating reform in mental health services, suggesting that mental health practitioners and researchers have relied on traditional and apparently unsuccessful methods (with little or no scientific support) to ensure service quality and effectiveness; debunking six myths about mental health services; and suggesting that…

Teacher candidates with mature life experiences offer the strongest potential for connecting with at-risk students, and alternative certification can bring them into the classroom. This paper discusses the following: how mature teachers provide needed supports to at-risk students, who comprises this group of teachers, and how mature teachers can…

This article describes the Collaborative Teacher Education Program (CTEP) at Indiana University, which uses distance education to offer special education certification coursework to elementary and secondary teachers in rural communities. Approximately 600 teachers have participated in CTEP since 1987. The article describes the program's students,…

Examines two approaches to teacher education reform: (1) decentralization and (2) a national bureaucratic strategy to adopt uniform standards for teacher accreditation, mandate curricular requisites, and legislate policies governing teacher professional development. The paper explains that teacher education must prepare teachers to work in the…

At the same time that NCLB has given states a mandate to staff their classrooms with "highly qualified teachers," the federal government is pushing a dangerously narrow definition of the knowledge and skills that today's teachers need. Over the last decade, policy makers and business leaders have come to realize what parents have always…

In Physics "critical mass" refers to the minimum amount of fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction. The adoption of state education policy isn't often equated with this concept, but occasionally solutions and ideas seem to gather around a common problem. If the solution at hand is simple, easily understood, and…

For several years the number of teachers trained in several subject areas through regular teacher education programs in Turkey has been insufficient to meet the demands in the country. As a result, to combat teacher shortages in many subjects alternative routes to teacher certification have been sought. Here we examine teacher candidates'…

The purpose of this article was to model United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 2 passing rates using the Cox Proportional Hazards Model, best known for its application in analyzing clinical trial data. The number of months it took to pass the computer-based Step 2 examination was treated as the dependent variable in the model.…

The Summer Institute for Teacher Education (SITE), a one-year program, emerged in response to a California State University directive to increase the number of credentialed teachers. This article explains the rationale and program approach, describes the participants of the first two cohorts--SITE 1999 and SITE 2000, and uses yearly program…

The increasing popularity of digital information has brought great convenience to library patrons. It has, however, posed challenges to libraries in achieving their major missions, i.e., preservation and dissemination of information. The underlying reasons for this phenomenon are dichotomous: the restrictions imposed by electronic information…

Faced with an acute shortage of teachers in the United States, New York City has initiated an alternative teacher induction program called the Teaching Fellows (NYCTF). This study, focusing on the verbal and written narratives of 38 participants, examines the various foci of these new teachers through their first year of teaching. The participants…

Following landmark legislation passed more than 20 years ago, university-industry relationships have now become central to understanding the changing role of research universities in American Society. The paper analyzes the development of university-industry partnerships during the 1990s. Past studies have used a broad array of measures of ties…

Recent debates about the utility of teacher education have raised questions about whether certified teachers are, in general, more effective than those who have not met the testing and training requirements for certification, and whether some candidates with strong liberal arts backgrounds might be at least as effective as teacher education…

This study examines the attitudes and future plans of students who discontinued their studies in university certificate programs. These non-returning students were separated into three groups: opt-outs, stop-outs, and drop-outs. Two separate surveys were undertaken; one survey consisted of students enrolled in a certificate program offered by the…

As accrediting associations and ISLLC Standards for School Leaders attest, school leaders have a critical role to insure equitable educational opportunities for diverse students. But how are they being prepared for multicultural leadership in administrator preparation programs? This qualitative study examined and contrasted four different…