This score interpretation guide is designed to help administrators and classroom teachers understand the scores and scales of the 1994 and Beyond Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP). MSPAP scale scores indicate a school's level of performance in the content areas of reading, writing, language usage, mathematics, science, and…

Linking teacher treatment to student impact is not as straightforward as it may seem initially. The difficulties in measuring the impact on students are illustrated in this discussion of the Ohio Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI). Since the inception of the SSI, the external evaluators had planned to use data from the state's proficiency tests…

Performance based assessment refers to tasks that require students to construct responses or take actions to demonstrate specific knowledge or skills. Performance assessment tasks appear in a variety of formats, but they focus on higher order skills and are nonroutine, and sometimes loosely structured, in nature. A number of concerns have been…

The industrial education program in the Teachers College at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is using a currently established technical training environment available across the state: the state's community colleges. UNL uses the community colleges' technical expertise in two ways. First, traditional on-campus industrial technology…

This report provides direction for assessment policy and practice in employability and work force education and training programs serving youth and adult learners in Iowa. It provides a research base for the consideration of common assessment instruments for youth and adult learners in these programs. The report first identifies existing…

This report is a comprehensive needs assessment study that provides the foundation for a statewide adult basic education (ABE) accountability system in Iowa. Data from this study, conducted in 1993-94 by the Iowa Department of Education, were collected through a survey mailed to a total of 9,700 ABE program staff, community agency contact persons,…

This booklet emphasizes the importance of National Education Goal 1, which states that all children should be ready to learn when they start school. The booklet also explains the educational and social effects that early childhood programs can have on young children, and shows how the Nebraska State Board of Education, citizen groups, and school…

A state educational indicator system being developed by the Pennsylvania Educational Policy Studies (PEPS) project at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) is described. The extensive database that has been established as part of the PEPS project includes thousands of variables that are descriptive of the 500 Pennsylvania school districts.…

A study investigated the influence of Community Leadership: A County Perspective--(CLCP), a 12-week Georgia program to help build and maintain a solid leadership base in a community, on participants' organizational participation, political activity, leadership and problem-solving skills, further involvement in community issues, and decision…

This paper presents a summary of the current status of efforts to include students with mental retardation in mainstream educational programs. It begins with a summary of a New Jersey federal court's ruling requiring more inclusive education and a discussion of the commitment of the Arc (formerly The Association for Retarded Citizens of the United…

The purpose of this report was to develop a plan for adult education staff development directed towards enhancing and expanding the delivery of training to Adult Basic Education (ABE), General Educational Development (GED), and English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) staff in Pennsylvania. It is intended to provide guidance and direction to adult…

Global competition, coupled with the United States' loss of its competitive economic edge and its failure to sustain and develop a highly skilled work force, has created a new and serious challenge. To meet this challenge, the State Employment and Training Commission has developed a series of recommendations, called the Unified State Plan for New…

The purpose of this bulletin is to examine general policies and principles of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education, to assess the status of the ESL program at the state level in Oregon, and to examine ESL programs in two Oregon school districts. The study is concerned with both the quantitative (demography, budget allocations) and…

The Virginia Statewide Program To Endorse Teachers in Severe and Profound Handicaps was a 5-year personnel preparation project which selected and trained teachers currently unendorsed but employed to teach students with severe disabilities in schools across Virginia. Participating universities included the University of Virginia (UVA), George…

This paper offers concrete examples from recent policy research about how qualitative and quantitative methods can be combined to better address research questions. Using a conceptual framework developed by Rossman and Wilson (1985), later expanded by Greene, Caracelli, and Graham (1989), the paper discusses how the design and analysis phases of…