This year marks the seventh edition of the "Summary of State Student Assessment Programs" (SSAP) and the third year that the Council of Chief State School Officers has conducted the survey on which the summary is based on its own. The survey summarizes what is happening in statewide assessment programs and provides information on trends…

The CRitical Issue Bibliography (CRIB) Sheet describes resources that highlight institutional practices that have been instrumental in the creation of multicultural campus environments. These lessons from the field of multicultural education can help other institutions in developing and implementing policy. The annotated bibliography describes 10…

The Johnson County Community College (JCCC) Success Center (Kansas) has been operational since 2000 and focuses on the facilitation of student growth and development. The Center's user evaluation--the results of which are contained in this document--is one of three projects developed to help evaluate the Center's success model. A questionnaire was…

This, the second of three annual reports by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), continues to track central policy and developments in the implementation of the British National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies (NLS and NNS). The report considers value for money in their funding and on the perception and experience of the…

An evaluation was conducted of the second year of the K-3 District Reading Plan (2001-2002) in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), California. In September 1999, the district created the reading plan requiring the use of specific programs for low-achieving elementary schools. The evaluation also focused on alphabetics, reading…

RAND Criminal Justice conducted a randomized experimental evaluation of the South Oxnard Challenge Project (SOCP), a collaborative project between county, city and private non-profit agencies based on the "Corrections of Place" (COP) model. The project targets youth who live in South Oxnard or Port Hueneme, are between 12 and 18 years old, have a…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is the first interstate compact for education in the United States. This annual report describes the foundation and activities of the SREB, which deals with education at all levels, from prekindergarten through college. SREB maintains an extensive database about education in all 16 member states. Staff…

This proceedings contains 15 conference papers and presentation summaries from the 14th annual International Conference on Outdoor Recreation and Education (ICORE). Titles are: "The Hidden Costs of Outdoor Education/Recreation Academic Training" (Christian Bisson); "The Service Learning Concept: Service Learning in the National…

To help teachers, administrators, and parents understand student performance in writing, a state-level report is prepared each year to analyze students writing scores and provide guidelines for the interpretation of the results. This report compares students scores on the 2001 Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) with scores on the 2000 DSTP…

This study investigated the return on investment (ROI) of the Southern extension Leadership Development (SELD) Program as implemented at the University of Georgia. The SELD program builds around the skills individuals and groups in cooperative extension work need to be effective in the future. The centerpiece of SELD is the Managerial Assessment…

This paper compares and summarizes empirical research on the outcomes of outdoor education (OE) and related programs. Most frequently, OE outcomes have been researched using post-program surveys of staff and participant attitudes. Such reports are vulnerable to many potential distortions. A second major approach to examining OE effectiveness…

This study investigated parents' attitudes toward the summer vacation period and their children's summer experiences. Participants were a nationally representative sample of approximately 400 parents of children age 5-14 years who completed telephone interviews as part of two subsequent omnibus surveys. Most parents ranged in age from 35-54 years.…

Civic engagement that is, community service, political activism, environmentalism, and other volunteer activities provide needed services to community residents and psychological, social, and intellectual benefits to participants. A small but growing body of research suggests the likelihood that active involvement leads to healthy, active…

This interactive multimedia presentation is a new tool for promoting campus-community partnerships. The CD-ROM provides commentary on college-community partnerships, interviews with Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) Directors, staff, and students, and video of grantee activities. The presentations revolve around four themes central to…

The settlement between the states and the tobacco manufacturers reached in November 1998 is expected to infuse $206 billion in new revenues into state treasuries over the next 25 years. This study examined state decisions concerning the tobacco settlement revenues in order to highlight opportunities for using the funds to support children's…