Studied the nature of barriers to the implementation of external program evaluation through interviews with 18 staff members of a university outreach program. Findings reinforce the importance of a trusting relationship to avoid barriers to evaluation implementation. (SLD)

Many employers in the United States have been initiating or expanding policies requiring background checks of prospective employees. The ability to perform such checks has been abetted by the growth of computerized databases and of commercial enterprises that facilitate access to personal information. Employers now have ready access to public…

In this paper, the author demonstrates the importance of trust for educators. He describes the different developmental stages, different foundations, and different levels of trust. He also discusses what educational leaders can do about it by suggesting a number of different strategies: (1) recognizing that trust is a multi-level concept; (2)…

"Teaching for Joy and Justice" is the much-anticipated sequel to Linda Christensen's bestselling, "Reading, Writing, and Rising Up." Christensen is recognized as one of the country's finest teachers. Her latest book shows why. Through story upon story, Christensen demonstrates how she draws on students' lives and the world to teach poetry, essay,…

Recent research literature suggests that students benefit from positive relationships with their teachers. Small high schools attempt to formalize expectations for such relationships through a variety of organizational structures, including the advisor role. As advisors, teachers work with a group of students in order to guide and support them.…

Ken Klingenstein has led national networking initiatives for the past 25 years. He served as director of computing and network services at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1985-1999, and today, Klingenstein is director of middleware and security for Internet2. Truth is, this networking innovator has participated in the development of the…

Despite a lack of applied research, social partnerships are increasingly being adopted by both government and non-government agencies to meet localized needs in education and other fields. This article discusses the findings of an investigation of how social partnerships can best be formed, developed and sustained over time. Earlier work…

The development and evaluation of a peer mentoring program for Chinese immigrant adolescents' cultural adjustment is described. Twenty-three high school students who recently immigrated from Mainland China participated in the year-long program and 4 high school students served as their peer mentors. Data analyses revealed that the students who…

This paper discusses the role of trust and shared goals in relation to participation in inter-organisational and multi-agency partnerships. It draws on a study of partnership working in England and focuses in particular on the perspectives of senior managers of post-16 education and training providers with substantial experience of working in…

This qualitative study involved five doctoral counselling students from a major Canadian university who shared critical incidents of barriers and facilitators of reflective practice in their graduate experiences. Sixteen incidents engendered reflection while eight hindered open reflection. Conditions found to facilitate reflective practice…

Campus Canada promotes lifelong learning through the articulation of workplace and other experiential learning for academic credit. This paper describes the recent re-development of the Record of Learning (RoL) component of the Campus Canada's e-Portfolio System. In matching the academic members' desires for provision of secure e-transcripts with…

If we assume that learning is best achieved in a social setting, then a vital aspect of any learning environment is its ability to support the development of trust. Trust takes many forms, from helping to identify the validity or the effectiveness of a learning resource to feelings of safety and reliance on support from fellow learners and…

Schools have recently begun to place increased emphasis on the use of rigorous research evidence in guiding instructional decisions. Turning education into an evidence-based field is easier to advocate than to achieve, particularly in an environment of competing claims about what works. In this article, the author discusses the factors which…

A multilevel analysis of data from 711 teachers and 3,760 pupils in a sample of 34 Flemish (Belgium) secondary schools (19 technical/vocational and 15 general schools) demonstrated a relation between tracking and teachers' job satisfaction. Teachers in technical/vocational schools tended to be less satisfied with their jobs than were teachers in…

The mere word "bureaucracy" brings to mind images of endless lines, piles of paperwork, and frustrating battles over rules and red tape. But some bureaucracies are clearly more efficient and responsive than others. Why? In "Teaching, Tasks, and Trust", distinguished political scientists John Brehm and Scott Gates show that a good part of the…