With the failure of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to adopt the governor's education reform package, the time is opportune to review the major problems with education in Pennsylvania and some actions that would relieve these problems. The main symptom of education problems, in Pennsylvania as in the nation as a whole, is weak academic…

This report describes the attitudes of parents, the general public, school principals, and teachers across Kentucky about the implementation of school reforms based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). Data were gathered from random telephone surveys in the eight geographic regions of the state for each targeted audience based on…

This report describes what schools and educators across Kentucky are doing to implement school reform in performance assessment based on the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). It provides research-based suggestions about how implementation of programs can be enhanced and how the benefits of reform increased for the Kentucky youth.…

This document reports on Maryland's progress as of 1995 toward the eight National Education Goals. The document lists the National Education Goals; describes state progress made toward each goal; describes programs that address each goal; and presents statistics on enrollment, public school funding, teacher salaries, attendance, special programs,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems and issues that emerged as school districts in Pennsylvania tried to implement a strategic planning mandate at the local level. In June 1993, revisions to the Pennsylvania school code changed requirements for graduation from time spent in the classroom to the mastery of 53 state-designated…

This collection presents 91 papers or summaries presented at a 1997 conference on self-study and institutional improvement for institutions of higher education. Papers are grouped in the following chapters (with sample topics in parentheses): (1) "Institutional Mission and Institutional Change" (vision statements; balancing quality and change);…

The 14 papers in this volume examine former and current evaluation systems used in higher education in a number of countries and regions. Chapters include: (1) "Introduction, Apex Institutions, Statuses and Quality Control" (Robert Cowen); (2) "The Evaluation of the Higher Education System in Algeria" (Boutheina Cheriet); (3) "The Evaluation of…

This study evaluated a pilot project for privatizing or outsourcing remedial education programs in the state of Maryland. The program was conducted by the mathematics department at Howard Community College and Sylvan Learning Systems, a Baltimore-based tutoring company, and covered four periods the summer, spring, and fall semesters of 1995 and…

Multigrade grouping is the practice of intentionally grouping two or more grade levels in the same classroom to enhance learning. It is becoming a much discussed and implemented alternative grouping practice in middle level education. This paper describes the implementation process of two multigrade "teams" in two Florida middle schools,…

Intended as a guide for policymakers in the California community colleges for the last half of the 1990s, this report describes four challenges facing the community college system and identifies major policy directions. Following an introduction, the following challenges are presented: (1) the delivery of high quality education in a manner that…

This bibliography cites over 300 publications on citizenship education. Sources, arranged alphabetically by author, include books, journal articles, conference papers, periodicals, reports, curricula, essays, handbooks, standards, teaching guides, research studies, and bibliographies from 1931--October 1996. (CB)

Several international agencies related to the United Nations and the World Bank convened the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtein, Thailand, March 5 through 9, 1990. The 1,500 conference participants adopted two texts, the "World Declaration on Education for All" and the "Framework for Action To Meet Basic Learning…

This issue brief offers principles and guidelines for evaluating educational policies on the inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings. Special education's development into an increasingly separate system since 1975 is noted, as is the continuing influence of policies that segregate students by disability. The brief…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a survey of national trends in educational achievement, is attempting to expand its inclusion of students with disabilities or limitations that have previously caused them to be excluded from the assessment. The study described was a precursor to the 1996 changes in NAEP inclusion procedures.…

Well-constructed Information Management Systems (IMSs) are designed specifically to allow for the unobtrusive and automatic acquisition of data describing the key operations associated with the interlocking cycle of relationships between curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This paper argues that IMS software is an essential element to be…