In pursuing the priority of offering all students an equitable and excellent education, the Clinton administration has focused the nation on an urgent imperative: High standards for all students must be set and achieved. This imperative presents a difficult challenge and an enormous opportunity for chronically disadvantaged students, particularly…

South African women in informal settlements lack access to education and employment opportunities, making them vulnerable to exploitation and poverty. A collaborative narrative inquiry was undertaken to compile the life histories of 16 women, identifying their participation in community building. The process combined popular education and feminist…

States and communities across the country recognize that creating a shared set of desired outcomes for young people provides the opportunity to take stock in how well children and teens are doing on national and local levels. While some of this data is available across time and states, much of it focuses on the negative indicators (e.g., teen…

This report provides an evaluation of the Online at PA Libraries project which was initiated in the Fall of 1996 by the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Office of Commonwealth Libraries and the Schuylkill Intermediate Unit. The report documents that the following goals were accomplished: (1) provide public access to the Internet through…

This book details the work required at the outset of all efforts designed to improve an organization's performance at the organization, process, and/or individual levels. The book is divided into four parts that are devoted to the following aspects of conducting the systematic diagnostic analysis required to improve performance: (1) analysis as…

The National Reporting System (NRS) is a project to develop an accountability system for the federally funded adult education program. The system includes a set of student measures to allow assessment of the impact of adult education instruction, methodologies for collecting the measures, reporting forms and procedures, and training and technical…

The National Reporting System project was designed to establish an outcome-based accountability system for the state-administered, federally funded adult education program. In the pilot test, volunteer states and their local programs compared the feasibility and costs of these three data collection models: (1) local programs collect all the…

This paper focuses on the data ramification of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998. Section 1 provides an outline of the role of these postsecondary institutions under WIA: members of the State and local boards; one-stop operators; one-stop partners; and eligible service…

This volume traces broad outlines of the economy in the 20th century, its impact on the American worker, and evolution of statistical tools needed by policymakers, workers, employers, and researchers in a new century. An introductory essay (Donald M. Fisk) outlines the economic, technological, social, and business developments of the 20th century.…

This monograph, part of a series on student assessment, reports on the results of a national survey that examined institutional support for undergraduate student assessment. It provides a national profile of student assessment initiatives at comprehensive institutions and compares it to assessment practices and support patterns found in all types…

This book is intended to be a practical reference for accessing agencies that provide transition services for students with disabilities after they exit school and for including those agencies in the transition planning process while the student is still in public school. Emphasis throughout is on interagency collaboration and the various…

Describes a social work course incorporating ethnographic research methods, including seven course modules that cover sampling, data collection, data analysis, theory development, presentation of findings, and practical application within a clinical setting. Also presents student evaluations of course relevance and usefulness, and educational and…

The following recommendations are made to assist multidisciplinary teams in developing educational programs for second-language learners: diversify the team and offer training; compare student performance in native and secondary languages; consider factors associated with second-language acquisition; employ alternative assessments; identify life…

Studies of the mathematics assessments of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are summarized. One study found that omit rates for NAEP test items were higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for whites. The other found that descriptions and examples for the 1992 mathematics achievement levels were misleading. (SLD)

Describes language use in parent-child interactions in the homes of three Puerto Rican kindergartners. Micro-ethnographic techniques were used to gather contextual data and audio tape recordings of adult-child interactions in the classroom and homes. It is suggested that teachers must identify the skills parents possess that are relevant to their…