This report provides general background information on the State of Maryland's Special Education Nonpublic Placements program, which is responsible for approving the placement of Maryland students with disabilities in private schools. The report describes the program, analyzes the trends, and makes several recommendations. Findings of the report…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been collecting data on student achievement since 1969. It currently maintains three different assessments: long-term trends, cross-sectional national, and cross-sectional state-by-state data. Although the data are available to researchers outside the Federal Government, limited use has…

This guide, which is intended for planners, administrators, and staff involved in state and local welfare reform efforts, summarizes information about the "work first" approach to welfare reform that was gained from comprehensive evaluations of work first programs and discussions with program managers, practitioners, and participants.…

This report addresses the integration of technology into California's kindergarten through twelfth grade classrooms to prepare students for the job market and for college. The report sets goals for technology integration with a 4-year plan, assesses its cost, and proposes funding and implementation strategies for reaching those goals. The report…

The final report of the Texas Childhood Hunger Identification Project (Texas CHIP), this document describes the most comprehensive study of childhood hunger undertaken in Texas. Through enumeration and interviewing methods, low-income families from 27 counties in Texas were analyzed in the areas of income allocation, food frequency, homelessness,…

This paper explores some of the obstacles to implementation of tests required for graduation by describing state programs in existence as of October 1994 in which students were required to pass a test in order to receive a high school diploma. A survey of state testing directors used to construct the State Student Assessment Program Database was…

The Oregon State System of Higher Education is developing a new approach to admission to any of the state's seven public baccalaureate granting institutions. This approach replaces the grade point average with proficiencies, clearly specified statements of the knowledge and skills students must master. The new system is known as the…

The Missouri Mastery and Achievement Tests (MMAT) were developed as a result of the Excellence in Education Act of 1985, which required the state department of education to identify core competencies and key skills in reading/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies/civics and to test a sample of students annually. State-level data…

Information on the implementation of services for preschool children with special needs and their families is presented, acquired from a survey of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 8 outlying jurisdictions. The information is organized into nine sections reflecting major state activities related to the Part B, Section 619 portion of the…

Several tests available from the Educational Testing Service (Princeton, New Jersey) have been used or are candidates for use by the Tennessee State Department of Education as initial public school personnel licensure endorsement area tests. The first of the two reports contained in this document (i.e., the Executive Report) describes a study of…

The New York State Liberty Partnerships Program (LPP) provides students at risk of dropping out of school with services specifically designed to keep them in school through high school graduation, to encourage them to pursue higher education, and/or to secure meaningful employment. Section 1 describes the LPP school year program, giving brief…

This report describes the role of the California Department of Education (CDE) in the administration of a federal block grant to provide child care and development services to disadvantaged children in California. Part 1 outlines the legal assurances that CDE has provided to the U.S. Department of Education in regard to the administration of child…

Initiatives to improve vocational education--such as tech prep, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), and Goals 2000: Educate America Act--are full of promise. Case studies prepared by the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America illustrate the potential of these initiatives. Massachusetts and Wisconsin are two recipients of federal STWOA…

Data previously reviewed are updated to show that, despite cuts imposed statewide because of the deficit reductions of 1991-92, the relations in educational finance among New York City, the rest of the state, and the metropolitan suburban districts remain essentially unchanged. State aid per pupil fell below the previous year's level in 1991-92 in…

Urban school superintendents from Pennsylvania and New Jersey met to consider issues related to the improvement of urban secondary schools. Although the public is pessimistic about all urban public schools, it regards secondary schools with particular pessimism. There are 70 urban high schools in New Jersey and 81 in Pennsylvania. Superintendents…