This report presents an examination of the use of a participative model in the strategic planning process at a publicly-supported, comprehensive institution in the middle Atlantic region of the United States. Specific attention is given to the process of developing the vision statement, an undertaking of approximately 15 months preceding Board of…

This paper reports on the implementation of an Integrated Assessment and Strategic Planning (IASP) process to comply with accountability requirements at the community college of New Mexico State University at Alamogordo. The IASP model adapted an existing compliance matrix and applied it to the business college program in 1995 to assess and…

To help determine the appropriateness of Illinois Board of Higher Education policies related to the Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree, a study was conducted over the State Higher Education Executive Officers listserv to determine current state-level policies and practices. Six policy questions were posted to the listserv related to minimum…

This report presents case studies of five American Indian tribes that employed the Tribal Disability Actualization Process for considering disability legislative and policy issues. The first section reviews the history of the relationship between Indian nations and the United States, and addresses the demography of disability among American…

This report evaluated economic incentives for employer participation in a comprehensive school-to-work (STW) initiative. In general, the business, economic, and educational literature emphasizes quantifying the fiscal benefits of employer-sponsored training, although only qualitative outcomes are available for some programs. The literature…

In fall 1996, the British Columbia Ministry of Education, Skills and Training released a strategic plan calling for the development of block transfer agreements between institutions to eliminate the time-consuming process of course-by-course credit assessment. Currently, institutions conduct independent evaluations of elements of an incoming…

In January 1994, the Chicago Urban League (Illinois) brought together 11 of Chicago's leading scholars and community leaders for a discussion of the intersection of race and poverty. Nearly 300 people attended the symposium. The tone of the opening panel,"Racial/Ethnic Community Structures and the Making of Public Policy," was set by…

The economic consequences and political context of the busing plan of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district (North Carolina) are explored. From an economic standpoint, busing did more to help Charlotte's business elite catch up with Atlanta's business elite than to help Charlotte's blacks catch up with Charlotte's whites. The developmental…

In 1991 Arizona embarked on a program to change schools and make them more accountable for educational achievement. The instrument of reform was an assessment program known as the Arizona Student Assessment Program (ASAP), the most notable feature of which was a performance assessment that was added to an already extensive battery of…

This paper describes the Science Education Professional Development Project in Australia, charged with the development of a national strategy for enhancing professional development of science teachers. Interviews were conducted with senior policy officers, science teachers' associations and unions, and 80 science teachers in 12 secondary schools.…

Data from the 1990-91 Tennessee school district report cards are used to reexamine some relationships noted in previous studies (G. C. Bobbett and others, 1992) and to gain new insights because of modifications to Tennessee's report cards from 1989 to 1991. Report cards now report the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment results and have added more…

In 1990, the Kentucky legislature established the Education Professional Standards Board as part of a systemic program of educational improvement. This report was commissioned to facilitate discussions about how best to configure certification requirements and related professional development activities. The first three sections identify, review,…

This booklet introduces the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys administered by the Bureau of the Census for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It contains a general description of the survey forms and their uses. IPEDS is a system of surveys designed to collect data from all providers of postsecondary…

According to the Advisory Board of the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce (EQW), young people in the United States are losing out in the job market, too often having to settle for intermittent, part-time jobs, routinized work, low wages, and few if any benefits. This circumstance has been the result of a net loss of 1.65…

An overview of cost analysis is provided as it relates to a particular educational reform--the use of performance or authentic assessment on a large scale as a means of transforming entire educational systems. The focus of the inquiry is the New Standards Project (NSP), a joint effort of the National Center on Education and the Economy and the…