This report presents data from Making the Grade's 1995-96 survey of state initiatives to support school-based health centers. The survey's main findings reveal that there were 900 such centers providing care to children during the 1995-96 school year, representing a 50 percent increase over previous year. The importance of state funding for these…

Thirty-two states now have some form of accountability legislation that requires the reporting of school and school system performance indicators. This study examined the Alabama State Report Card to determine whether its information is sufficient to inform the public, legislature, and the media about the achievement of each school and school…

These three brochures discuss important issues related to child welfare. The first, "Family Support: A New Approach to Child Well-Being," summarizes this philosophy of community service. Family support is defined and differentiated from traditional services; its advantages are outlined; and specific family support programs in…

The Employment Training Panel (ETP) contracted with California State University-Northridge to review the fixed fee structure ETP used to pay contractors for training provided under ETP. Three research questions were investigated: what other institutions use the fixed fee and what they pay for; whether ETP's fixed-fee rates were reasonable in…

This report summarizes information gathered during an interim study of the Schools' TeleLearning Service (STS), a cooperative effort of the Nebraska State Department of Education (NDE) and the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission (NETC) to provide instructional television programming for students in Nebraska. The study, which sought…

This reference manual contains information on transition services for students with disabilities in New Jersey. Section 1 provides an overview of transition services and the five-year systems change grant New Jersey has received from the U.S. Department of Education. Also included is information on New Jersey education law, the four regional…

Staff members at the Iowa Department of Education are involved in a 3-year initiative (1998-2001) to strengthen school improvement efforts at the local school, district, and intermediate service agency levels. Papers presented at a symposium of the American Educational Research Association annual meeting describe the multiple purposes and design…

This report examines California's child care system. California families with working parents are less likely to rely on center-based child care than are families nationwide. The supply of child care has not kept pace with the recent movement of families from welfare to work. Thousands of California children are without child care or adult…

The federal government's key summer nutrition programs for low-income children are the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFSP is an entitlement program funding public and private non-profit organizations to serve nutritious meals…

This technical assistance paper is designed to provide local adult vocational education administrators and teachers in Florida with information to implement the Vocational Preparatory Instruction (VPI) programs more effectively and in compliance with the VPI curriculum frameworks. Developed by practitioners in the state of Florida, the curriculum…

A study analyzed the forces affecting improvement and implementation of international agricultural perspectives in secondary programs of agricultural science in Texas. A mail survey, based on force-field analysis, was used to determine the effect of 14 variables, including 3 that involved perceptions of the relevance, knowledge, and implementation…

A review of the growing population of students receiving special education services in Florida and the extent to which these students are included in statewide assessments concluded that participation has improved slightly but had not met its goals. The report begins by providing statistical information on the special education population and then…

This guide is designed to give the student helpful information about Arizona's Instrument To Measure the Standards (AIMS) for high school. The guide provides examples of the type of questions students see on AIMS and explains how items are scored. It does not teach what the student needs to know to do well on AIMS, but it will help the student…

This paper addresses problems with performance on open-ended (i.e., not multiple choice) test questions administered on paper for students accustomed to writing with computers. The first section summarizes the results of three studies that examined differences between computer and paper-and-pencil test results. The second section identifies three…

Noting that wages for child care workers are among the lowest in the U.S. labor force and that generally caregivers are offered few employee benefits, this paper summarizes proposals and programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to raise child care worker compensation. The paper classifies state-level initiatives into two categories:…