Presents a rationale for including life planning in career guidance programs, describing how each of the following is served by life planning: counseling, assessment, credential portfolios, career and labor market information, employability skills, and work experience. Outlines elements of a comprehensive career and life planning program. (SK)

Describes several successful community-oriented primary care (COPC) projects conducted by the Health Partners Family Practice Residency Program and outlines eight lessons learned from these projects. The experiences of these projects show that COPC development is a long and slow process that provides many rewards during implementation. (SLD)

Highlights the roles and responsibilities that leaders must assume in administrating and guiding a character education program in a school or school district. Discusses some leadership strategies and concludes that without a strong leader, a character education program will fade away. (Author/JDM)

Revisits an April 2000 article questioning the relevance and efficacy of Instructional Systems Design (ISD) and comes back to the question of whether ISD is flawed or is the manner in which people are putting ISD into practice the problem. (JOW)

Presents five steps to develop sustainable community programs: (1) grant writing and planning; (2) program startup; (3) plan refinement; (4) program expansion and improvement; and (5) program transitions and sustainability. Describes the critical tasks, skills, core questions, and feedback loops essential at each stage. (SK)

Discusses the effectiveness of mentoring programs in reducing the dropout rate and helping students avoid drugs and alcohol. Describes Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, the nation's oldest and largest youth mentoring program. Includes 16 steps for setting up a school-based mentoring program. (JOW)

Articulates how the family support movement emerged in the last 20 years, and describes the philosophical premises, principles, and practices that currently guide it. Considers the inability of current family support program typologies to guide outcome evaluations, and introduces a typology that deconstructs family support programs into their…

An appropriate education is one that identifies students' educational needs and then provides a curriculum that addresses those needs (Benbow & Stanley, 1996). All students, even those identified as gifted, deserve a personalized education. However, many educators outside gifted education believe that "giftedness" is a fancy label and that gifted…

Describes the development of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) and the context in which it will operate. This new wing of the international evaluation architecture has been designed to support development evaluators in tackling professional changes of the new century. (SLD)

To be effective sites for enacting WAC change, writing fellows programs, like WAC itself, must be attuned to institutional realities, adapting goals and practices accordingly. To illustrate what being "attuned" has meant to the program she directs, the author describes five writing fellow placements, each motivated by the sometimes…

The paper mainly introduces the development of the educational administration agency in China, including the evolution of the educational administration agency, the Course of instituting legal system of education in China, the missions of the now Minister of Education, questions emerged in the development of the educational administration system,…

It is generally accepted that teaching online is a different experience than teaching face-to-face, requiring new skills and techniques. To address some of the unique challenges related to teaching in the online environment, many institutions of higher education utilize a collaborative team-based approach to online course development bringing…

In Fall 2007, Hudson Guild--a settlement house that provides services to hundreds of adults, teens and children in two housing developments in New York City--embarked on a study to assess the needs of youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who were residing in the community and were disconnected (i.e., those youth who were not in school or not…

There are relatively few major federal programs focused directly on advancing a systemic approach to mental health in schools. One such program is the U.S. Department of Education's grant program entitled: "Integration of Schools and Mental Health Systems." Established in 2005, the program has funded 51 projects and is in the process of funding…

Students need to be competent in science because of its impact on everyday decision-making, the rapid pace of change and the increasing interdependent global economy (Lawton, 2007; U.S. Department of Education, 2000; Lederman, 1998). According to the National Research Council, "Teachers of science should develop communities of science learners…