This paper describes the development from 1963 to 1986 of the Clark County (Nevada) Library District, which includes the rapidly growing urban area of Las Vegas. It notes that, besides responding successfully to a population growth of 330% over two decades, the system was also able to fulfill its original goal of developing local libraries that…

Children begin school with the ability to use their informal and implicit conceptual knowledge to guide their problem solving, but shift to the use of superficial strategies in their attempts to solve word problems as they progress through school. This paper describes a study designed to investigate the effects of an instructional sequence that…

This report is one of a group of papers examining curriculum issues related to science education courses at a Swedish university. Symbolic interactionism and symbolic interactionist ethnography have informed the research strategies in these investigations. The paper focuses on curriculum development from the actor's perspective. To evaluate a…

Early Childhood Family Education is a voluntary public school program for Minnesota families with children through kindergarten age. The program's mission is to support parents' ability to provide for their children's development. To determine the program's effectiveness, participating parents were interviewed in the fall of 1990 and again at the…

Seven elementary, junior high, and high schools participate in the Memphis City Deregulation Program (MCDP), a school-based decision making program in which the principle of shared leadership is a key concept. Shared leadership requires a shift from traditional roles, responsibilities, and power relationships. This study focuses on 49 teachers in…

This article presents a description of an instructional management system called Consistency Management (CM) and its implementation in five urban elementary schools in Texas, with over 2,500 students. CM aimed to create a consistently implemented schoolwide consensus for teaching and learning that provided a self-analytical approach for teachers…

Developed for college graduates with disabilities, this guide offers guidance for the job search process in the context of job applicants' rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). First, basic facts about the ADA are explained, including a clause by clause explanation of the Act's definition of a disability. Next, the impact of the…

A study was conducted to determine the perspectives of two-year college faculty and students regarding the teaching and learning of literacy. Specifically, the study examined participants' definitions, personal values, and experiences related to literacy instruction/acquisition. Data were gathered from interviews with 12 faculty members and 12…

Between 1987 and 1991, the National Center for Research on Teacher Education engaged in the Teaching Education and Learning to Teach study, a longitudinal study of teachers as they participated in a variety of teacher education programs. The study sought to determine how teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and reasoning changed over time, and it…

The findings of an ethnographic study of schooling and work in a small rural community in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York are reported. More than half the school children in the community live in poverty. Research explores the relationships between patterns of adult work and the schooling of children, and between schooled and…

The impact of portfolio assessment, specifically writing portfolios, on the norms of classroom assessment practices were studied in two English Language Arts classes in a middle class suburban high school in the Los Angeles (California) area. Data were gathered through observations and interviews, and the examination of 25 student portfolios, with…

Correspondence, survey, and group interview data were combined to investigate the nature and consequences of participatory evaluation activities in a medium-sized school district (48,000 students) in Simcoe County in Ontario (Canada). The study focused on the dynamics, supporting conditions, and consequences of internally conducted participatory…

A research project was conducted in Washington State in 1992 to develop an assessment system that could be used by adult basic education (ABE) and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs to satisfy accountability requirements and to provide assessment information useful for classroom instruction. In this preliminary work, 35 ABE/ESL programs…

This paper presents a functional approach to assessment and associated program development for individuals with severe disabilities, with emphasis on informal strategies that target beginning communicative levels. In the first section, form, function, and context (three components of any communicative act) are defined and described. Three…

Issues emerging from a collaborative evaluation of an interactive video teaching trial conducted in Rockhampton (Queensland, Australia) are reported. The trial aimed at providing an assessment of the feasibility and potential of interactive video technology for teaching and learning in a diverse area of Australia with a number of small, widely…