This report offers a perspective on school violence and its pervasiveness as a local public-safety issue. It summarizes the responses of 700 cities and towns to a survey conducted by the National League of Cities (NLC) in 1994. Half of the nation's 200 largest cities responded, but the largest percentage of responses were from suburban and rural…

This paper examines political and government changes affecting higher education in Australia, particularly as they impact upon teacher education, and with specific emphasis upon practices in New South Wales (NSW). Structural features of the governance of education at the federal and state/territory levels are outlined, noting that teacher…

This booklet examines the risks that college and universities face due to student alcohol use and abuse, and outlines procedures that institutions can use to develop effective alcohol policies. Although legal precedents have recognized that colleges and universities do not have a duty to supervise student conduct under principles of in loco…

This discussion of the major factors that appear to determine the pace of development of computer uses in education in developing nations focuses on Brunei, a tiny, oil-rich sultanate in South East Aia with a population of approximately a quarter of a million. Questions are often raised as to whether computers are required merely to follow the…

This report is a summary of a May 1994 meeting on the participation of students with disabilities in statewide assessment programs. The report reviews the background of the meeting, states the issues addressed, and summarizes the major points of agreement reached. A set of recommendations is offered for making participation and accommodation…

As Texas public schools undertake their third year of implementing site-based decision making (SBDM), it becomes increasingly important to examine the extent to which SBDM has achieved its purported goals. This paper examined how Texas public school districts might effect mandated governance changes through the political phenomenon known as…

Six documents were reviewed and recommendations relevant to the work of the Advisory Committee on Testing in Chapter 1 were summarized. A brief description of a framework for discussing different uses of assessment is followed by specific recommendations from each of the following sources: (1) "Working Paper: Reauthorization of the…

State programs offer greatest promise for practical strategic actions to enhance the quality of the nation's adult work force. Three steps in the recursive process that create a model of state action are as follows: (1) documentation of the platform for action, which consists of current adult work force attributes and current institutional…

The first edition of this handbook provided descriptions of the existing offices for women in medicine at 6 medical schools and examples of the programs in place at about 50 additional schools. The goals of both the first and second editions are the same: to give support and ideas to Women Liaison Officers (WLOs). The second edition, however, goes…

This report proposes that state economic development policy and resources, and state personnel, with their knowledge of and access to the business community, can contribute to the intertwined issues of competitiveness and poverty. Following an introduction, chapter 2 examines four related issues: poverty, income equity, welfare dependency, and the…

National- and state-level reports on education indicators have been produced since the mid-1980s. However, the debate continues over which education indicators to select and report. This paper outlines the lessons gained by a national organization in building an education indicators system through cooperation with state education agencies and…

A research project that developed methods for describing, organizing, analyzing, and predicting state education policy activity had as its major focus the way that values affect that policy. Data were drawn from six states: Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Arizona, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They were chosen to represent ranges of political…

Difficulties and rewards in using state assessment policy to benefit both students and the state are reviewed. The questions examined in this guide will help state policy makers know the questions they should ask about whether, what, and how well students are learning. Questions were developed from four seminars in 1989, 1990, and 1991 on…

This brief analyzes a recent shift in the U.S. Department of Education's policy on minority designated scholarships and explores the issues in the national debate on these scholarships. An overview of the controversy notes the Title VI section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlaws racial discrimination where federal funds are received. A…

The National Advisory Commission on Work-Based Learning worked to identify practical steps that the Labor Department could take to help increase the skill levels of the U.S. work force and expand work-based training. The findings gained from a series of roundtables and further studies were synthesized into a set of recommendations in five major…