Effective meaningful relationships in schools that are grounded in the common purpose of student achievement and progress result in effective teaching and learning. Such relationships require personalized environments. Schools large and small must purposefully create conditions that enable students and teachers to come to know and be known well by…

In the past 20 years, there have been numerous calls for a reinvigoration of vocational psychology. Now, as vocational psychology has grown again within counseling psychology, the authors argue that what is needed is not a reinvigoration but rather a new paradigm that reintegrates vocational psychology and the rest of counseling psychology. The…

Service learning involves learning a variety of skills through the act of service. It is a powerful teaching strategy that can enrich student learning, enhance teaching, and revitalize communities. This increasingly popular strategy offers a framework in which students can recall and apply more of what they learn than in traditional content-based…

This article talks about Certified Manufacturing Specialist (CMS), a Georgia training program that has successfully addressed the needs of both students and partners in business and industry. The program helped business reduce the learning curve for new employees; improved productivity, quality, and safety; reduced material waste; eased the…

Despite a growing realization that unmeasured programmatic differences influence prison-based drug treatment effectiveness, few attempts to systematically measure such differences have been made. To improve program planning and evaluation in this area, we developed a census instrument to collect descriptive information about 118 prison-based drug…

For educators interested in engaging in critical literacy work with families and schools, the efforts can be both exhilarating and exasperating. Reflecting on a two-year family literacy project, we consider the possibilities and pitfalls of the projects' design and implementation. The work described in this article takes a stance that is both…

Despite long-standing calls for more intentional professional development as a way to ensure a higher quality workforce in student affairs, little progress has been made. Various committees and task forces have suggested frameworks for program development, the certification of program quality and attendance, the recording of individual…

The purpose of this report is to provide a brief background on the current status on values teaching, to describe the two values education approaches most frequently appearing in recent educational literature (values clarification and cognitive development), to discuss methods of initiating values programs, to furnish examples of how schools are…

The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) was assigned the task of compiling, analyzing, and summarizing the data for Indicator 1--Graduation--from the FFY 2008 Annual Performance Reports (APRs) and amended State Performance Plans (SPPs), which were submitted by States to the Office of Special Education…

The Food Safety Knowledge Network (FSKN) is a collaboration between Michigan State University, the Global Food Safety Initiative of the Consumer Goods Forum, and other food industry and public sector partners. FSKN's goal is to help strengthen the food industry's response to the complex food safety knowledge and training challenges that affect…

Early career special educators must be engaged in conversations with developers of preservice teacher preparation programs to co-construct initial teacher education programs which meet their needs. The process of listening to the teachers themselves could serve to ensure that teachers are an explicit element of program design. This article…

This paper will detail three projects which focussed on enhancing online learning at a large Australian distance education University within a School of Business, School of Health and School of Education. Each project had special funding and took quite distinctive project management approaches, which reflect the desire to embed innovation and…

Outdated, unknown, or unneeded amounts of dangerous or inappropriate chemicals are often found in K-12 schools across the nation, potentially putting students and staff at risk. Because of the nature of some of the chemicals, even small amounts may present a risk. Thus, dangerous chemicals represent one of the critical environmental health and…

This paper examines the effects of preschool expansion in Kalamazoo County on the county's economic development. Effects on the county's economic development are defined as effects on the employment and earnings of county residents. The estimated effects are found to be large relative to the costs. In addition to their relevance to Kalamazoo…

In recent years, growing knowledge of the critical importance of early childhood development for lifelong learning and growth had led to increased calls for the professionalism of early childhood educators, including higher standards for their training and education. As part of this attention to professional development, many states are…