Data on secondary social studies education in Rhode Island public schools are analyzed. Of 36 schools contacted in 1982-83, 25 department chairpersons and 154 teachers responded to questionnaires covering professional background, chairperson role perceptions, faculty program perceptions, departmental offerings, and instructional techniques and…

Intended for students taking the English 33 Grade 12 Diploma Examinations in Alberta, Canada, this test booklet contains the composition component of the June 1988 tests. During 2.5 hours, students are required to perform the following writing tasks: (1) a personal response to an excerpt from Ursula K. Le Guin's "Very Far Away from Anywhere…

A summary of recommendations for improving the fiscal data portion of the Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data includes a discussion of the issues surrounding each recommendation. The following actions are recommended: (1) revenues and expenditures should include a breakdown of function by funds, and further detail should be…

Prepared by a state educational planning committee, this report uses key indicators to describe the status of the Delaware school system. Sets of comparative data selected from various national studies and from state surveys appear throughout the report. The statistical material is supplemented with descriptions of trends and discussions of the…

The information that is currently collected on the nation's postsecondary institutions focuses primarily on quantity, addressing the need for descriptive information on students, faculty, and finances. This type of research, though necessary, is not sufficient for an understanding of the broader accountability issues emerging in the 1980's.…

This report presents test results derived from the student testing that was conducted in 1983-84 under the aegis of the California Assessment Program (CAP). All third, sixth, eighth, and twelfth grade students in California public schools were tested in reading, written language, and mathematics. The highlight of the 1983-84 expansion of CAP was…

This document contains three papers developed by the Center for the Study of Evaluation's (CSE's) Research into Practice Project. The first paper, "A Process for Designing and Implementing a Dual Purpose Evaluation System," by Pamela Aschbacher and James Burry, provides a model for evaluating programs for two purposes simultaneously: (1) program…

A study examined the relative effectiveness of three alternative delivery systems for secondary vocational education--vocational high schools, comprehensive high schools, and area vocational centers. It also ascertained how well secondary vocational education is serving women, minority groups, handicapped individuals, economically disadvantaged…

In 1982, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) proposed to implement a new, complex design for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The major features of this design are described in "A New Design for a New Era" (Messick, Beaton, and Lord, 1983). The purpose of this document is to describe the actual implementation of…

This document is the users' guide for Version 3.1 of the Public-Use data tapes compiled by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1983-84. The Public-Use tapes are produced to allow outside researchers access to the NAEP data. The tapes accompanying this guide contain data assessing student achievement in reading and writing at…

Conducted by the Council for Educational Development and Research, a national survey asked educators representing the nation's 8,889 small, rural school districts to indicate which of 40 items/issues facing rural, small schools needed improvement. The 4,364 respondents (827 school board presidents, 1,251 district superintendents, 1,283 principals,…

This report describes the improvement of the University of Michigan Elementary Teacher Education program evaluation system through analysis of computerized longitudinal data generated by student self reports from 1977 to 1980. Students enrolled in the elementary certification program received a list of 96 instructional competencies and were given…

Problems and priorities in teacher education are discussed in this collection of writings, not only in relation to countries in the Western world, but also in developing countries and communist states. Section 1, "Problems and Perspectives," presents articles on: (1) changing priorities in teacher education (William Taylor); (2) industrialized…

The back-to-basics movement and public demands for educational quality guarantees have led state education agencies (SEA's) to examine their options in four areas: definition of the basics, relevant curricular and programming alternatives, alternatives for evaluating achievement of basics-related goals, and methods of reporting achievements to the…

A multiple-indicator and multiple-design approach for evaluating the quality of basic skills programs in reading, writing, and mathematics that has been implemented within a statewide system of higher education in the southeastern United States was assessed. Several of the evaluation methodologies are compared in order to determine whether results…