An argument based on the content fit among a college course, the American College Testing Program (ACT) Assessment tests, and students' high school course work is described to justify use of ACT scores and self-reported high school grades for placement of college freshmen in undergraduate remedial education. A utility-based approach to quantifying…

Reforms in education have raised two critical fiscal policy issues: How is education reform to be financed? and Do the dollars spent on education reform make a difference? Schools can successfully meet these challenges by practicing sound fiscal management and placing an emphasis on cost-effectiveness and accountability. In the future, a…

This guide, which is intended for new supervisors and managers to use in an independent study setting, deals with costing, balance sheets, and budgetary control. The first section, "Matters of Cost" by J. E. and J. F. Smith, deals with the following topics: profits and productivity, principles of costing, cost control and cost reduction, fixed and…

This report explores effects of a year-round schedule on pupil and teacher attendance in the Jefferson County, Colorado, School District. Information is drawn from a 1977 district study and from interviews with teachers and principals. Comparison of data on attendance before the program and after its first year found that attendance increased in…

This report on the potential of new interactive technologies for improving learning examines developments in the use of computer-based technologies, analyzes key trends in hardware and software development, evaluates the capability of technology to improve learning in many areas, and explores ways to substantially increase student access to…

The purpose of this paper is to examine what is known about the costs and cost-effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) by presenting an appropriate cost methodology, applying it to CAI, and exploring the validity of four popular assumptions. These assumptions are: (1) that computer hardware accounts for most of the cost of delivering…

This publication includes presentations made at the Aikin-Stinnett Lecture Series and follow-up papers sponsored by the Instructional Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University. The papers in this collection focus upon the basic assumptions and conceptual bases of teacher education and the use of research in providing a foundation for…

This report discusses diverse economic issues involved in educational reforms aimed at improving economic growth. The focus is on elementary and secondary education in the southeastern United States. After a general overview of the economics of educational reform, section I discusses the issues involved in modeling and estimating the linkages…

Designed to provide instructional technologists, policy makers, and administrators with an overview of the basic principles of distance education, this booklet comprises eight chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) A Selective History; (3) Components of Distance Education Systems; (4) Organizational Options; (5) Instructional Technologists and Staffing…

This handbook is designed to help managers address safety belt usage issues through a cost-effective and direct approach--establishing an employee safety belt program. The handbook offers a hands-on guide for conducting the program and provides for implementation at all levels. The handbook contains cost information, a program overview, policy and…

Designed to assist educational decision-makers at the school and district level, this report summarizes the work of the National Task Force on Educational Technology, which was formed in the fall of 1984 to investigate the potential of appropriately integrated technology for improving learning in American schools. The task force used six primary…

Five policy papers address methods of funding vocational/special education and relative benefits versus expenditures for different employment training systems for moderately and severely handicapped persons. The first paper critiques the present vocational education funding system for handicapped students. Federal funding mechanisms, state and…

Conventional accounting systems provide no indication as to what conditions and events lead to reported outcomes, since they traditionally do not include measurements of the human organization and its relationship to events at the outcome stage. Human resources accounting is used to measure these additional types of data. This research is…

This second volume of a three-volume report of the National Commission for Manpower Policy on Public Service Employment (PSE) contains the interim report of the Brookings Institution to the Commission based on their onsite monitoring of the program. The report is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the report, and…

The rationale for using multiple evaluation strategies in a comprehensive program evaluation is described. Examples are given of eleven strategies used in the evaluation of the Experience-Based Career Education project developed by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory through sponsorship of the National Institute of Education. Strengths…