The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was established in 1987 and charged with the mission of improving the quality of teaching and public education. The National Board certification system involves three critical elements: (1) standards setting; (2) assessment instruments; and (3) professional development. This Digest…

In January 1992, the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST) issued a report "Raising Standards for American Education," which called for the establishment of a national system of educational standards and assessments as a basis for comprehensive reform of U.S. education. This statement is a facsimile of the written…

This document offers materials for a 40-hour course aimed at helping employees read more efficiently by increasing their comprehension, retention, and test-taking skills. The course was part of a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners. The document contains the following: (1) a course…

"Application Performance," a supplemental drill in the Japanese language program at Oregon State University, is described as a way to develop students' communicative competence. The approach is a type of role play, with pairs of students preparing a dialogue according to a situation provided by the instructor and then performed in class.…

In spring 1992, a mid-term assessment of English 10 students was conducted at Golden West College, in California, in order to compare four course placement methods. English 10, "Writing Essentials," is a nontransferrable course which focuses on paragraph writing and grammar review in order to prepare students for entry into English 100.…

This book presents 11 papers which consider the central issues, methods, and resources for work in institutional research in higher education. The primer uses the idea of a "cookbook" or "manual" for its conceptualization, organization, and format. The chapter topics focus on what are expected to be the key issues facing…

Collaborations between schools and parents, and schools and other institutions, seek to improve or expand available resources. This issue of "Focus in Change" focuses on two elementary schools with different models of collaboration in place. At Columbia Park Elementary School (Maryland) parents have been involved in site-based management teams…

This paper examines the language planning efforts of the government of Ecuador and groups representing the indigenous peoples of the country. Government sanctioned policy and practice, as well as the grassroots efforts of the Indian population, both aim to influence language behavior and both have ultimately been directed at social and political…

Technology is a powerful and important support tool for restructuring the school's teaching and learning environment. This document examines the rate of historical acquisition, level of access, and degree of use of technology within New York State public schools. The number of microcomputers in the schools has more than doubled in the past 8…

In 1991, staff at the Business Resource Center (BRC) at Tacoma Community College, in Washington, began to reevaluate their approach to serving students. Up to that point, the BRC had been teacher centered, with staff operating under the assumptions that only the students who succeeded were actually "college material," that students would cheat if…

The Teacher Induction Partnerships program was developed by the University of Northern Colorado and several Colorado school districts. The program represents an approach to teacher induction which serves to support beginning and reentry teachers, foster collaborative relationships between the university and school districts, and increase new…

A portfolio assessment process was implemented in the Special Education Division of Central Washington University's teacher education program. The portfolio assessment was designed as an "end of major" assessment with three goals: provide a continuous assessment of the program of studies, determine the quality of program graduates, and…

This annual publication is designed to show North Carolina's rank among the states on a wide variety of educational and related statistics. This information may be useful for a number of planning and evaluation purposes. Data are presented in the following areas: (1) population; (2) enrollment and attendance; (3) faculty; (4) general financial…

There was general agreement among the more than 200 people testifying at hearings held by the Michigan Commission on Spanish Speaking Affairs in the summer of 1990 that the quality of life is lower for Hispanic Americans in Michigan than for the population as a whole. Hispanic Americans lag in average educational attainment, high school graduation…

The nine papers in this volume represent a majority of the presentations at a conference that examined in detail employee development (ED) initiatives from Europe and North America. An introduction provides a contextual background to the vocational training and education debates characterizing policy development in the European and North American…