The economic meltdown has hit U.S. college campuses, and higher education is on the chopping block in state budgets, with cuts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars already approved and hundreds of millions in more cuts on the way. As veteran legislators, the authors have seen this story play out before in previous recessions. The mindset on…

The deadline pressure states faced in submitting applications in the federal Race to the Top competition is now being felt at the local level, as school districts scurry to craft work plans that show how they will execute ambitious changes in education policy. Eleven states, plus the District of Columbia, have won a combined $4 billion this year…

America continues to make progress in meeting its high school dropout challenge. Leaders in education, government, nonprofits and business have awakened to the individual, social and economic costs of the dropout crisis and are working together to solve it. This year, all states, districts, and schools are required by law to calculate high school…

The purpose of this action research study was to restructure and implement an effective middle school advisory model. This was conducted at a Middle School in Painesville Township, Ohio consisting of approximately 800 students. In order to meet Adequate Yearly Progress and adapt to the changes of the 21st century, a way to help the school progress…

Training, recruiting, developing, and supporting talented and effective educators throughout their careers is known as human capital resource management (HCRM) in education. HCRM has been identified in recent literature as one of the ways in which districts and states may increase school effectiveness and improve student learning (Heneman &…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the Self-Determined Career Development Model (SDCDM) on the job performance of four adults with moderate intellectual disabilities employed in competitive work settings. Employees learned to set work-related goals, develop an action plan, implement the plan, and adjust their goals and plans as…

A pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of EnvisionIT, a 10-unit web-based curriculum designed to teach secondary students information technology (IT) skills in the context of transition-planning activities. Fifteen high schools were stratified by socioeconomic status and randomly assigned to the…

A plan for orientation activities prior to and during the first weeks of school for new teachers of the educable mentally retarded is presented. Kinds of teachers who will be oriented, qualities of an adequate orientation program, steps taken in program planning, plan implementation, and followup orientation are discussed. Also included are…

The use of virtual or Web-based tours is on the rise in academic libraries, but with the loss of face-to-face contact and direct experience with the library's physical spaces, questions abound about this format's efficacy. Do online tour experiences measure up to those of a guided, face-to-face tour? Do online tours help mold students' perceptions…

This is an abridged, summary report of selected findings from "Pieces of the Puzzle: Factors in the Improvement of Urban School Districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress"--a comprehensive study prepared by the Council of the Great City Schools in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and with…

To explore the informal socialization of beginning elementary school principals, questionnaires were sent to a population of 107 Catholic school principals in their first, second, or third year of elementary school principalship in Ohio. Usable responses from 81 (76 percent) identified the significant others and the stages of 25 selected…

This report summarizes preliminary and exploratory research conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research on urban school systems participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study is one of the first large-scale analyses…

It has long been established that self-assessment and goal-setting are regular features of the writing process of experienced writers. It has also been demonstrated that students develop more power and control over their writing when they are encouraged to become their own evaluators. Therefore, to help beginning writers think and act more like…

Investigated career patterns and aspirations of 234 male and female Ohio elementary school principals. Factors found to relate significantly to gender include personal characteristics such as race and marital status, professional experiences such as career pattern prior to principalship, age when first considering principalship, reason for…

A preliminary study assessed trends in orientation and training and compensation of cooperating teachers involved in the student-teaching experience. Findings indicated that cooperating teachers received little formal preparation for their supervisory responsibilities, and compensation ranged from none to tuition waivers and other university…