Check & Connect was created in a five year period from 1990 to 1995. The original manual, entitled "Keeping Kids in School: Using Check & Connect for Dropout Prevention" and written by David Evelo, Mary Sinclair, Christine Hurley, Sandra Christenson, and Martha Thurlow, was published in 1996 (ED398701). This newly revised Check…

This issue celebrates Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's (SEDL's) history and touches upon new work. This issue includes an article on the need for educators to have access to relevant, high-quality research findings and to be able to apply those findings to their local settings. It also discusses briefly the three randomized…

This document describes the Delaware approach to transition from the secondary vocational center to postsecondary education. A consortium of state legislators and state and local educators, the Delaware Consortium on Technical Preparation Programs (Tech Prep), has the following mission: establish lines of communication between participating…

The following considerations are of major importance to the persons who act as technical assisters for the Long Range Plan for School Improvement (LRPSI) in Pennsylvania: (1) long-range planning should be viewed as a deliberative and participative process; its steps should not be considered in isolation from each other; (2) comprehensive needs…

As Western educators help Central and Eastern European institutions develop programs in business and economics education, five areas require attention: (1) team teaching by local and Western faculty; (2) coordination between host and Western institutions; (3) institution building; (4) careful selection and preparation of faculty to provide…

These two documents are products of a project to improve the capability of the Pennsylvania Regional Staff Development Centers to provide current, research-based workplace literacy training and technical assistance to adult basic and literacy education programs. The final report describes these project activities: development of training materials…

This paper reports on a study of the 1980 Maryland State Department of Education school improvement project utilizing Mastery Learning. It examines the instructional process implementation, the impact of one pilot school, and the statewide program through observation, surveys, interviews, document analysis, and participant self-reports. Data were…

This document provides a framework for academic and career/technical teachers who want to raise students' achievement through real-life projects reflecting the rigorous academic and technical standards needed for further learning in the workplace and postsecondary education. The document begins with definitions of the six A's of project-based…