The goals of education are commonly and easily agreed upon. The author points out that steps can and should be taken to determine how well school goals are, in fact, achieved. (Editor)

Building a railroad or writing about it in class takes a lot of organization. (Editor)

Defines the history, role, and methods of the NAEP in carrying out educational assessment in the United States. (RK) Aspect of National Assessment (NAEP) dealt with in this document: Program Description (Operating Procedures).

Discusses the methodological requirements for valid inferences from school-effectiveness research studies, which include long-term longitudinal data and proper statistical modelling of hierarchical data structures. Explains problems with using simple performance indicators to measure school effectiveness. Outlines appropriate multilevel…

Outlines current ideas about the use of focus groups in library and information science and considers advantages and disadvantages of different types of focus group discussions. Discusses reasons for choosing this research method. (AEF)

Educators design school restructuring efforts based on their beliefs about the changing global society; pressures of the business world, community, and parents; and perceived societal needs. A recent survey shows that school children's greatest concerns are divorce, money and finances, and family discord and violence. Children's voices, not…

Overviews the development of corpus linguistics, reviews the use of corpora in modern lexicography, and presents central issues in ongoing work aimed at broadening the scope of lexicographical use of corpus data. Focuses on how the field has developed in relation to the production of new monolingual English dictionaries by major British…

The Exchange collects and shares financial, enrollment, and cost data useful to urban universities in matters related to accountability, benchmarking, policy, and strategic planning. This history of the project includes problems addressed, current uses of data, and special studies under way. (Author/PW)

Describes a project whereby students collect morphological and anatomical measurements concerning the response of pine to elevated levels of ozone. Suggests that student measurements represent a reliable source of data for scientists. Presents examples of student datasets and comparisons with reflectance data. Discusses the importance of being…

Discusses school finance data needs, highlighting discrepancies between available data and emerging policy issues surrounding resource origination, disposition, and utilization; and data usage. Discusses some innovative data uses (allocating teachers' and students' time) in New York State and recommends ways to assure the alignment of collected…

Advises administrators not to procrastinate on their district's compilation of disaggregated data on student achievement and teacher qualifications. Outlines the data requirements for NCLB compliance. (MLF)

Presents six steps of data warehouse development that result in valuable, long-term reporting solutions, discussing how to choose the right reporting vehicle. The six steps are: defining one's needs; mapping the source for each element; extracting the data; cleaning and verifying the data; moving the data into a relational database; and developing…

This special section of the "Bulletin" includes an introduction and the following articles: "New Metadata Standards for Digital Resources: MODS (Metadata Object and Description Schema) and METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard)"; "Metadata Generation: Processes, People and Tools"; "Data Collection for…

Examines data on racial identification from the 2000 Census to document the mixed race population of children in the United States. Using California data as an example, the article considers various methods for tabulating multiple-response race data, noting the impact of each on demographic conclusions. Discusses how federal guidelines on race…

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign undertook a project to test the efficacy of using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting to construct a search and discovery service focused on information resources in the domain of cultural heritage. Provides an overview of the Illinois project, with quantitative data about…