Almost two years into the federal Race to the Top program, states are spending their shares of the $4 billion prize at a snail's pace--a reflection of the challenges the 12 winners face as they try to get ambitious education improvement plans off the ground. Through the end of March, the 11 states and the District of Columbia had spent just 14…

International indicators show that Finland has one of the most educated citizenries in the world, provides educational opportunities in an egalitarian manner, and makes efficient use of resources. But at the beginning of the 1990s, education in Finland was nothing special in international terms. The performance of Finnish students on international…

The 2012 MetLife Foundation-NASSP Breakthrough Schools are outstanding examples of how determined and focused leaders create and sustain school improvement. The schools are places of strategic decision making where dedicated adults demonstrate their conviction that every student can and will achieve. Each of the schools demonstrates the efficacy…

The Montana Autism Education Project (MAEP), that started in 2010, aimed to: (a) increase teacher knowledge of Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs), (b) provide on-site technical assistance and peer-to-peer collaboration, (c) develop sustainable support for teachers across Montana, and (d) develop inter-agency collaboration between the project and…

Cherryvale Secondary School is located in a small, rural city. Mike Randall has been the principal there for three years. Each year principals are required by the school district to devise a School Improvement Plan. In Mike's first year, he chose a social justice goal, focusing on "Student Success on a Case-by-Case Basis." Mike and…

David Pearce Snyder has predicted that "if a significant number of major mainstream institutions do not undertake publicly acknowledged initiatives to dramatically improve the relevance of their curriculums, the rigor of their standards, and the productivity of their operations...the marketplace will have begun to make available so many…

This document is a committee report on H.R. 5087, a bill to improve veterans' education assistance programs, which the committee recommended unanimously to approve as amended. Some of the major provisions of the bill are the following: (1) change the requirements that military personnel complete high school equivalency degree requirements before…

Although the author offers no handy formula to determine program effectiveness, she does present an extensive list of statements that can help the school administrator plan program improvement with his music teachers. (Editor)

Skills or knowledge acquired in short-term educational experiences are often rapidly washed-out after returning to a work environment. This article describes an attempt to maintain the skills of employment counselors after they return from a workshop setting to their work environment. (Author)

A variety of traditional and nontraditional selection indices were used to predict the outcome of a graduate-level course in counseling which was specifically designed to improve the students' human relations skills. The need for a new and more efficient predictive model for graduate-level counselor training is discussed. (Author)

This handbook, one of five local handbooks developed to support specialized implementation of the National Career Development Guidelines, presents guidelines for developing comprehensive programs for students who are served at the post-secondary school level. Part I describes the need for guidelines and standards in career development, defines…

More than 50 child care experts were asked (1) What aspects of child care are most likely to ensure high quality? (2) What are the current barriers to achieving quality in child care? and (3) What corporate or labor initiative would make the greatest difference in improving the quality of child care services? Recommendations generated from the…

The way in which the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) is or is not serving the agricultural community is the focus of these proceedings. This record contains presentations and/or written testimony given by senators and representatives, by the directors of JTPA service delivery areas, by a representative from the Job Service in Iowa, by several…

The Program Standards Evaluation System was developed in response to evaluation requirements in the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. The system includes procedures for using standards data to monitor and evaluate vocational rehabilitation (VR) service outcomes and outputs as well as standards on key procedural issues. The system includes procedures for…

The National Association of County Training and Employment Professionals represents the service delivery areas (SDAs) that operate and administer programs funded by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). With renewal and overhaul of the JTPA on the legislative horizon, the association made the following recommendations: (1) eligibility should…