There is a growing call to reconsider current approaches to national and state assessment system policies and practices. State and local education agency leaders, educators, community leaders, and advocates have voiced concerns that current state assessment systems--defined primarily by end-of-year multiple-choice tests--are unable to meet…

This resource was prepared for an Early Learning Challenge (ELC) State in response to a request for information about initiatives to improve the quality of child care and early education provided by family, friends, and neighbors in the 20 RTT-ELC States. This information will be helpful to other States as they consider how to continue to increase…

This publication highlights how state leaders tackle data interoperability with the emergence of data standards for student information, assessment, digital content, and other educational applications. While states are at various maturity levels for interoperability, each state shares goals for interoperability, the drivers for those goals,…

Recent violence in schools and on college campuses has brought into sharp focus the need to address mental health issues in educational settings. Getting students with mental health problems the help they need, without stigmatizing mental illness, may help prevent future tragedies. Children with mental health problems face a host of challenges,…

Six higher education institutions in Singapore and four universities in New Zealand have reportedly been placed on a list of unaccredited institutions and so-called "degree mills", which has been compiled by the Office of Degree Authorisation of the state of Oregon in the United States (US). As one of the first US states that introduced…

Before the passage of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act in 1972, pregnant and parenting students throughout the United States were often expelled from school. This manual for Oregon school administrators and social-service personnel provides information on the school-enrollment laws that affect pregnant and parenting students and describes some of…

An increasing number of state leaders have begun to grapple with one of the significant challenges of K-12 reform: how to substantially increase the percentage of young people graduating from high school while also continuing to bring academic standards into alignment with the skills and knowledge required for success in higher education and…

The Oregon Professional Development Center (OPDC) was created by the Oregon Department of Education to support school councils in the state as they make local changes to meet the requirements of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. School councils will be established at every school in Oregon, charged with three main areas of work:…

States are in the leadership position to effect pervasive and comprehensive changes needed in the educational system. There exist five key dimensions for analyzing initiatives resulting in systemic changes: (1) infusiveness, building upon existing knowledge; (2) pervasiveness, effecting improvements in all key components of the system, including…

This second annual report card on the status of Oregon public education describes the implementation of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. Information is presented in the following areas--school finance, staff characteristics and salaries, student demographics and achievement, student participation in programs and services, and…

As faculty and other public sector unions become more sophisticated in collective bargaining, they tend to lay a greater variety of demands on the table. This, in turn, forces the employer to ask, Do I really have to bargain about these subjects? As more employers refuse to bargain, more unions charge them with failing to bargain in good faith,…

The impact of one-stop career centers on the U.S. Employment Service (ES) program was examined through case studies of one-stop initiatives in the following states: Georgia; Ohio; California; Iowa; Oregon; Massachusetts; Texas; Utah; and Wisconsin. Of the nine case study states, only Georgia had not begun instituting a one-stop career center…