The first of six national educational goals, proclaimed by President Bush, to be accomplished by the year 2000 is that all children will start school ready to learn. This booklet examines this goal in terms of what it will take to ensure that all children develop the capacities or readiness to be successful in school. In the introduction, it is…

This study focuses on school report cards as an accountability tool, and on how their use interacts with one of the most persistent problems facing the public education system, i.e., the continuing underachievement of minority students. The paper looks specifically at the issues concerning the desirability of reporting student performance by race…

Students with disabilities have been excluded to an unreasonable extent from large-scale assessment programs at the national, state, and local levels. One implication of this exclusion practice is that students who are left out of assessments tend not to be considered during reform efforts. Another implication is that estimates of performance are…

Designed as a call to community college faculty, administrators, and trustees to make a major investment in the collegiate function of their institutions, this book attempts to provide a strong conceptual foundation for vigorous renewal of the collegiate community college. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the community college as a collegiate…

A previous research report described a prototype measure of the skill of negotiation in interpersonal competency and the results of an initial validation study of that measure. This report describes the results of two further validation studies of the computer simulation negotiation skill measure. In study 1, 37 second- and third-year law students…

This document examines the accomplishments of California's educational reform movement (1983-1993) in the context of the five major recommendations outlined in the 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk." A more comprehensive view of the state's systemic reforms is also provided. The five goals included the following: (1) strengthen graduation…

Most administrators agree that school improvement and change are needed. Disagreement among administrators arises over how the improvements should be made. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a powerful tool in bringing about change and should be considered as an effective alternative in improvement efforts. The TQM approach is designed to address…

These two papers look at international aspects of quality in higher education from contrasting perspectives. The first paper, "Higher Education Quality: A European Dimension" by John Brennan asks whether there is a distinctive European dimension to quality in higher education and, if so, what are its implications for British institutions…

The Mid-South Educational Research Association is a nonprofit organization established to encourage quality educational research in the Mid-south and to promote in the schools the application of the results of quality educational research. These proceedings present more than 400 abstracts of discussion-session papers, display sessions, symposia,…

Preparing the final report for an evaluation project often involves preparation of lengthy tables. To prevent persons from having to retype the data already in a mainframe file and then verify the data, the Evaluation and Assessment Laboratory of the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) uses a simple procedure that entails: (1) formatting the output…

This paper lists practices recommended by the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Early Childhood concerning service delivery models in early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) programs for infants and young children with special needs and their families. An introductory section discusses five principles that…

This paper lists practices recommended by the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Early Childhood concerning the promotion of social skills and emotional development in early intervention and early childhood special education programs for infants and young children with special needs and their families. An introductory section points…

This paper lists practices recommended by the Council for Exceptional Children's Division for Early Childhood concerning the promotion of motor skills in early intervention and early childhood special education programs for infants and young children with special needs and their families. An introductory section examines the importance of motor…

As part of an effort to develop strategies for measuring institutional effectiveness, a study was conducted at West Virginia University at Parkersburg (WVU-P), a two-year institution with an enrollment of nearly 4,000 students, to determine the most appropriate instrument for measuring gains in general education between incoming freshman (i.e.,…

This study examined the problem-solving and decision-making concepts included in the Consumer and Homemaking curricula in Illinois. Data were taken from a larger study, "Evaluating Program Outcomes: Occupation of Homemaking," conducted under the auspices of the Illinois State Board of Education. Through telephone interviews, 333 randomly…