Institutional effectiveness is "the process of articulating the mission, setting goals, and using data to form assessments in an ongoing cycle of goal setting and planning" (Grossman & Duncan, 1989). This definition encapsulates the intent of the ACICS criteria and expectations for the Institutional Effectiveness Plan (IEP) of accredited…

Out-of-school time (OST) programs have taken on a new importance in recent years because of changes in society. This paper examines OST programming and suggests reasons and mechanisms for integrating outcomes and research into program design. It explains and promotes the integration of outcomes and research into program development, provides…

This paper provides findings from the Study on School Violence and Prevention. During spring 1997, 886 middle-school and high-school principals from across the U.S. provided information about prevention activities in their schools. Information was again provided in 1998 by many of the same principals, as well as by students and teachers. The…

This report profiles violence in U.S. public high schools. It is based on data taken from a U.S. Department of Education survey of school principals that asked about the number and types of crimes reported to police for the 1996-97 school year. The analysis shows that 60 percent of the violence occurred in 4 percent of the schools. The high…

This booklet summarizes three reports on drug-use and violence-prevention efforts and school-crime patterns in American schools. The reports are based on findings from the Study on School Violence and Prevention, which investigated the extent of problem behavior in schools. The results indicate that schools in general were safe, but certain…

This volume presents three reports on drug-use and violence-prevention efforts and school-crime patterns in American schools. The reports are based on findings from the Study on School Violence and Prevention, which investigated the extent of problem behavior in 886 schools across the U.S. The findings indicate that schools in general were safe,…

A promising recent development in tertiary education involves the application of problem-based learning as a curricular vehicle to develop student talent. Problem-based learning (PBL) is common in professional education, such as in medical, law, and business schools, and is becoming increasingly common in pre-college education. However, it is less…

In 1994, the Mississippi legislature enacted the Workforce Education Act, Senate Bill 2955, which called for the creation of One-Stop Career Centers affiliated with each community college district. The mission of the One-Stop Career Centers was to provide assessment, training, and placement services to individuals needing training, retraining, and…

The 2000-2001 Fact Book for San Antonio College in Texas offers statistics on the college, students, enrollment trends, personnel, and finances. Highlights of the reports include: (1) 20,490 students were enrolled in fall 2000, 58.3% of whom were female; (2) 29% of students were age 19-21, 17.8% were 25-30, and 13% were 36-50; (3) 64% of students…

This document is a report on the economic impact of Johnson County Community College (JCCC) (Kansas) on Johnson County and the surrounding community. The information from the economic impact study are used to support the community college's effectiveness, assessment, and accreditation efforts. Results indicate that: (1) the Community College…

This report provides a summary of the preliminary investigations conducted by the Early Literacy Workgroup in Maine's schools, and is designed to serve the following purposes: articulate a set of interrelated, common characteristics of successful literacy programs; extend to schools an invitation to dialogue about effective literacy practices and…

This document reports on a survey administered at Santa Barbara City College (California) to determine the effectiveness of its English basic skills classes. The survey was also designed to explore the intention of students taking these courses to continue in the course sequence, as well as discover the students' current and future educational…

SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) is one of the federally funded regional educational laboratories. This annual publication captures and shares the experiences of SERVE school districts that have volunteered to share their efforts at assessment reform. This issue contains the following articles: (1) "Classroom Assessment: A…

This articles discusses ways to respond to the need for criterion referenced information using Bayes' theorem, a method coupled with criterion referenced testing in the early 1970s. The theorem determines the most likely classification for an examinee from a dichotomous choice or through placement on a categorical or interval scale. A discussion…

This report presents the Front Range Community College (FRCC) (Colorado) Office of Institutional Research's recent expansion of its data analysis and reporting capabilities to include a geographic information system (GIS). Utilizing ArcView GIS software, the college is better able to visualize institutional and environmental data. They have…