This report provides an overview of programs and services in New Jersey for single parents and displaced homemakers. The first section contains a 3-year comparison of secondary and adult female and male occupational enrollment by cluster and gender. It shows enrollment patterns in selected program areas and highlights the occupational clusters…

The sweeping changes of welfare reform embodied in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, and which created the Child Care and Development Block Grant, raise many questions about how states will implement subsidy programs to help an increasing number of low-income families meet their child care needs. At the…

In March 1995, the Mississippi State Department of Education implemented the Home Ties program as a 5-year pilot program at five sites, using federal funds made available through a sub-grant from the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) and matching funds appropriated by the Mississippi legislature. The program provided intensive,…

This document is comprised of six issues of the Child Care Bulletin, a bimonthly publication of the National Child Care Information Center. The January-February issue focuses on involving communities in child care planning. Topics discussed in this issue include: community mobilization strategies, assessing needs and establishing goals, and…

This paper describes the experiences of the Colorado Digitization Project (CDP) related to accessing a diverse set of primary resources held by many different cultural heritage institutions. The CDP is a collaborative initiative involving Colorado's archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums. The CDP's goal is to create a virtual…

This digest examines the rural teacher shortage from a policy perspective and suggests strategies to address the problem. The rural teacher recruitment and retention problem varies across states. An adequate number of teachers are trained each year nationwide, but the problem is with distribution. Recent research on rural teacher recruitment and…

This book offers parents and community members a clear picture of the Kentucky school improvement design through a solid and user-friendly explanation of the basics of the plan. The chapters are: (1) "What Is This Book For?"; (2) "What Is Our School System Working To Achieve?"; (3) "What Do Our Students Need To Know and Be…

This report provides information about trends in educational telecommunications for 1996-97. The first section, "An Overview of Educational Telecommunications in the USA," presents a summary of trends in the following areas: the growth of telecommunications and distance education; leadership and governance in telecommunications development; the…

Work-based learning is a national educational initiative to provide avenues for all students to connect their educational goals and skills to occupational opportunities. The initiative's goal is to ensure a seamless transition from high school to meaningful, high-quality employment or further education. Mentors involved in work-based learning help…

This guide lays out a detailed six-step strategy for promoting father involvement, especially among low-income, unwed men. Each of the six steps includes a menu of policy options from which policymakers can choose. Each step also includes detailed examples of what states, communities, and nonprofits nationwide are doing to promote responsible…

A study reviewed recent trends, issues, and changes within the states related to the use of discrepancy formulas and other approaches for determining eligibility of students with learning disabilities (LD) for special education and related services. A survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia found they all have a statement in their…

This study invesitigated possible reasons for the low performance on the text-based writing assessment of the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) in 2000, especially for grades 3 and 5, and considered ways to improve classroom instruction. In the first part of the study, a panel of teachers reviewed the anchor papers from the assessment and…

This study examined the effects of linguistic simplification of fourth and sixth grade science test items on a state assessment on the achievement of English language learners, those of limited English proficiency (LEP). At each grade level, 4 parallel 10-item testlets were included on an operational statewide assessment. On each testlet, items…

Beginning in 1999, all of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) had to be aligned with the Pennsylvania Academic Standards. This handbook describes the PSSA mathematics assessment. Following an overview of the PSSA, the second chapter focuses on the development and scoring of the mathematics assessment. Administering the assessment…

Beginning in 1999, all of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) had to be aligned with the Pennsylvania Academic Standards. This handbook describes the PSSA writing assessment, which was designed to measure individual student performance and to influence instruction. The guide contains a chart of the Pennsylvania Academic Standards…