The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The…

Coaching is a common approach to professional development and support for quality in early care and education (ECE) settings, and is an especially important part of professional development because it can be tailored to meet teachers' and family child care (FCC) providers' needs and can positively affect instructional practices, the quality of the…

Area Vocational Technical Schools (AVTS) in Pennsylvania were surveyed to determine the extent of cooperation between AVTS adult vocational education programs as well as business and industry. Findings indicated that most students were referred by business and industry to AVTS adult programs for vocational/technical training. The average number of…

The Vermont Independent Services Team Approach (VISTA), is a cross-disciplinary method for planning consensus decisions about type, mode, and frequency of related services required to support a student's educational program. After six student planning teams used the VISTA model, team members reported higher levels of confidence in team practices…

Encourages professors to become aware of and improve teaching skills through developing staff communication, writing effective learning objectives, constructing better tests and measures, and recognizing states of student intellectual development. (JD)

Some proponents of Michigan education reform have suggested that private schools could be used to reduce student overcrowding in public schools without the need for new taxes to construct additional schools. Another proposal includes using vouchers and tax credits to enhance parental school-choice options. Both proposals depend upon the ability…

Several categories of problems affecting adult learning services in Colorado require state-level policy intervention for their solution. They include problems that limit adults' access to existing learning services, inadequacies in existing services, deficiencies in statewide planning and coordination of learning services, and financial…

This paper reports findings of a study examining the nature of collaboration between special educators and general educators in two elementary schools. In addition, personal perspectives are presented on the linkages between conducting research and gaining experiences as a special educator at one of the elementary schools the year following…

This document consists of a final report and practitioner's guide. The final report describes a project that studied successful integration efforts between academic and vocational education. Four secondary school and three community college programs were studied. Teachers and administrators were interviewed, classes were observed, and curriculum…

This study stems from and builds upon an earlier project that involved aspiring school counselors and school leaders in a cross-discipline project to learn about the differing roles, legal, philosophical and ethical expectations for each group, and approaches to collaboration. During this earlier project, a series of seminars was held to engage…

Recognizing that successful collaboration among schools, institutes of higher education, and state education agencies to is an important factor in the professional development of education personnel, this document examines existing knowledge of interorganizational collaboration and identifies organizational preconditions conducive to the…

Special Education administrators (N=33) responded to a comprehensive survey on their use of microcomputers. Decision-making policies and practices indicated high levels of cooperation between special and regular education programs in acquiring hardware and software and in providing teacher training. Implications for subsequent directions for…

After describing the nature, promise, and reality of school-based management, this document discusses delegation of authority to the school site and distribution of authority among site participants as critical issues in the implementation of school-based management and reviews the importance and benefits of shared decision making. Eight major…

Chapter 1 of this study introduces the education service agency (ESA) by briefly examining its history and reviewing recent research on its present status. Identifying three basic ESA patterns (special district, regionalized agencies, and cooperative agencies), the initial chapter observes that, although most ESA's were not established until the…

A practicum model was designed to prepare secondary special education teachers to be collaborative decision makers and reflective practitioners. Over the course of the practicum, the nine participants were found to exhibit more reflective thinking, and collaboration with their peers seemed to assist in developing effective instructional…