Noting that the growing popularity of year-round schools (extended calendar without increasing the number of school days) has coincided with an increase in school accountability, this report provides a descriptive case study on one year-round school located within a large elementary school district in central Virginia. An optional year-round…

This document contains results for 1998-1999 for several North Carolina state testing programs. The Grade 3 Pretest is a multiple-choice reading and mathematics test administered to students in the first 3 weeks of third grade. This pretest was administered to more than 101,000 students in the beginning of the 1998-1999 school year. Results show…

The Oklahoma Educational Indicators Program is a system developed under the Oklahoma Education Reform Act of 1990 to assess the performance of public schools and school systems. "Profiles 1999" consists of state, district, and school components. Each component divides the information presented into three major reporting categories: (1)…

During 1999, the school choice movement succeeded in winning the enactment of an education tax credit program in Illinois and two new charter school laws, in addition to the sweeping (although subsequently overturned) school choice plan in Florida. Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas also attempted to enact school choice legislation. In addition,…

High school graduates from a self-selected group of school districts in Texas were surveyed early in the year after graduation regarding the extent to which they were engaged in activities endorsed by the state's School-to-Careers (STC) initiative during their senior year in high school. Since the STC initiative had only begun during these…

The Administrative Leadership Institute offered a Leadership Institute, Regional Group Meetings, and online support to administrators of adult basic and literacy education programs in Pennsylvania. The program was developed following a needs assessment that gathered information from administrators in the state. The Leadership Institute, held in…

Connecticut's Jobs First program, which began operating in January 1996, combines a time limit on welfare receipt with generous financial work incentives and requires recipients to participate in employment-related services targeted toward rapid job placement. The impacts of the Jobs First program were examined by following several thousand…

The Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI) program is an effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that targets large urban school systems with the goal of sustainable implementation of high-quality, standards-based teaching for the purpose of attaining system-wide increases in students' learning of challenging mathematics and science.…

Beginning in the 1992-93 school year, the North Carolina State Board of Education authorized the administration of North Carolina-developed end-of-grade tests aligned with the state's "Standard Course of Study." These curriculum-based tests were administered to over 553,000 students in grades 3 through 8 at the end of the 1997-98 school…

This document provides basic information about the Statewide Student Assessment System in New Mexico. There are four components of the Statewide Student Assessment System that are guided by the State Department of Education. Each component serves a specific purpose and targets specific grade levels. The purpose of the reading assessment of grades…

This summary report provides information about three of New Mexico's statewide assessments in 1997-1998. In spring 1998, the CTBS5/Terra Nova Survey Plus achievement test was administered to approximately 65,000 students in grades 4, 6, and 8 as part of the New Mexico Achievement Assessment Program. With three exceptions, the median national…

This monograph examines state initiatives to create educational structures that more closely align K-12 and postsecondary education. Data were collected as part of a national survey of state higher education agencies and site visits to Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin. Site visits in 1997 to Georgia, Maryland, and Ohio…

This document contains results for 1999-2000 for North Carolina state testing programs. The Grade 3 pretest is a multiple-choice reading and mathematics test administered to students in the first 3 weeks of grade 3. This pretest was administered to more than 102,000 students in the 1999-2000 school year. Results showed that 69.8% of students…

This report examines implementation and impacts of Ramsey County's Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), a "work first" program. Chapter 1 lists key findings, provides an overview of the Ramsey County variant (MFIP-R) evaluation, and policy relevance of MFIP-R. Chapter 2 describes key features of MFIP-R and compares them with…

This policy statement clarifies the role of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team in selecting individual accommodations, modifications in administration, and alternate assessments for state and district-wide assessments. It states that neither the state education agency (SEA) nor the local education agency (LEA) can limit the authority…