This report on the educational needs of American gifted and talented students identifies indicators of an educational crisis, describes the current status of education for these students, and presents recommendations to meet the educational needs of these students. Indicators demonstrating the need for change include the relatively poor…

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is a society that evaluates special education programs in the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) process. This study surveyed the 179 colleges and universities approved for accreditation by the CEC and sampled procedures the CEC-approved special education programs were…

Results of the third administration of the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), a statewide testing program for fourth-, eighth-, and 12th-grade students, are summarized. The assessment contains multiple-choice and open-ended questions in reading. mathematics, science, and social studies. In 1990, approximately 155,000 students…

In 1990, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education authorized a study of lower-division education services offered by Central State University, El Reno Junior College, Oklahoma City Community College, Oklahoma State University Technical Branch, and Rose State College--all operating in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Special attention…

This manual contains preliminary information, largely of a technical nature, about the enhanced American College Testing (ACT) Program introduced in October 1989. It focuses primarily on the tests of educational development, the component of the program that has been substantially revised. Although one-third of the ACT Interest Inventory Items has…

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the seven alternative schools in the Houston (Texas) Independent School District by describing the students who were served by the programs, and by assessing the effectiveness of the programs in improving student academic performance and attendance. The following schools provide education to at-risk…

Among the goals and recommendations for agriculture and natural resource education presented to the University of Wisconsin System institutions and Board of Trustees by the Steering Committee for Strategic Planning for Agriculture and Natural Resources are the following: (1) provide domestic and international leadership in research on food and…

Following a description of how the political climate in the 1960s through the 1980s influenced education, this document discusses the effects of districtwide curriculum standardization on Burr Oaks Elementary School in the midwestern village of Burr Oaks. The school's community setting, use of curriculum guides, and initial use of curriculum…

This literature review and analysis of the problem of building community confidence focuses on the work of the Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) Commission on Developing Public Confidence in Schools. Approaches to confidence building are categorized as: communications, concentrating on expanding communications one-way between school and the home; public…

A two-year study designed to evaluate an elementary language arts program in the Grande Prairie School District (Edmonton, Alberta) through an assessment of student achievement was conducted from 1983 to 1985. This final report describes all facets of the study and presents the researchers' findings and conclusions. Following a preface, the report…

Ten essays on the use of ethnography in educational assessment are presented. Overview essays include: (1) "Beyond the Status Quo in Ethnographic Educational Evaluation" (David M. Fetterman) and (2) "The Ethnographic Evaluator" (David M. Fetterman). Theoretical papers include: (3) "Theory in Education Evaluation: Or,…

In 1988, Midlands Technical College (MTC) launched a comprehensive institutional effectiveness initiative involving two primary components, planning and evaluation. Planning at MTC is composed of a strategic planning cycle and a complementary operational planning cycle. Strategic planning, conducted in two-year cycles, establishes the essential…

By June 1983, California enacted Senate Bill 813, a sweeping, comprehensive education reform program that contained over 80 education policy and program reforms. The state legislature asked the research team to analyze schools that were effectively responding to reform stimuli and to identify how Senate Bill 813 aided, hindered, or was irrelevant…

The aim of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) project "Science, Mathematics, and Technology" is to formulate recommendations for educational policy. Preparations for the project were made in each of the various member countries. Reported here are the results of the Netherlands meeting. The conference and…

In 1985, for the first time, Pennsylvania's student assessment program included measures of a higher order thinking skills goal termed Analytical Thinking. These tests utilize a decision-making model to assess such skills as drawing inferences, identifying appropriate information to gather before making a decision, analogical reasoning,…