This digest summarizes a report that addresses trends and issues in assessment in relation to the role of college faculty, including advances in assessment to make it more congenial to faculty, different ways in which institutions have approached assessment, and how assessment can be viewed as a faculty role. The report identifies such major…

This digest summarizes potential benefits of standards-based reform and areas of concern for schools serving American Indian and Alaska Native students. Content standards may benefit Indian education by creating a more common curriculum, providing a focus for improving teaching and learning, and promoting a more holistic, active-learning sort of…

This digest addresses city and state takeover as a school reform strategy, outlining the emergence of takeover in the past decade, discussing promises and limitations that takeover offers, and synthesizing the research to date on takeover's effectiveness. A notable trend over the past decade is greater implementation of takeover reforms,…

Accountability has always been a basic concept in public education, although ideas about how to accomplish it have changed over the years. Problems in urban schools have given rise to the hope that carefully created systems of accountability might spur school improvement and school restructuring. Devising a system of genuine accountability in a…

Institutional self-study is an appropriate method for determining quality and demonstrating accountability which can lead to academic and administrative excellence. With a trend toward state and federal government involvement in higher education, colleges will do well to conduct internal program assessments in order to maintain control. A…

Factors that have led to post-tenure evaluation of faculty are considered, along with concerns that should be examined before designing a post-tenure review process. Post-tenure evaluation is not in opposition to the principle of tenure and to policy statements about tenure issued by the American Association of University Professors, provided that…

Accountability has been a developing issue for community colleges for the past several years. Demands that two-year colleges provide evidence of the achievement of their goals has placed a heavy burden on institutional research offices. A number of organizational models have been used by community colleges in carrying out the research function,…

More than 20 states have adopted some form of regulation-relief legislation for their public schools. Two major issues confront the movement to deregulate the schools. The first is that there have been surprisingly few takers of regulation waivers; and second, whether, even if current deregulation efforts are successful, the end result is really…

Factors that have led to post-tenure evaluation of faculty are considered, along with limitations of tenure in general and current post-tenure evaluation practices. Positions of advocacy and opposition to post-tenure evaluation are identified, along with practical considerations that institutions might consider before modifying or implementing a…

Information about current policy issues and relationships Between state governments and higher education is presented, with focus on the conceptual issue of accountability and autonomy. The relationship between state governments and colleges is continually evolving. Four sections cover the following: (1) leadership in higher education (the…

When a variety of groups became concerned with a perceived deficiency in public education in the 1970's, critical attention was successively focused on student accountability, the school curriculum, and teachers. This digest briefly reports on teacher competency testing. The 1980 Gallup Poll showed that 85% of citizens polled said teachers should…

This continuing ERIC/CAPS series, entitled Searchlight Plus, consists of two components: first, an in-depth review of cited materials, including prime issues and trends, and implications for helping professionals; and second, citations from an ERIC computer search on the topic. Series topics are selected in response to user requests. Presented in…

The standards-based educational reform initiatives of the 1990's call for assessment innovations to support high standards. To document state assessment policies and to develop policy recommendations for assessment innovations, the George Washington University Center for Excellence and Equity in Education surveyed state assessment directors in…

The critical thinking movement is responding nationwide to the challenge of teaching thought processes to students. This volume contains 10 articles addressing critical thinking and the instruction of higher-level thinking skills: (1) "Critical Thinking: What, Why, and How," by Richard Paul; (2) "Teaching Critical Thinking across the Curriculum,"…

To help vocational education administrators and practitioners, this paper presents a framework for vocational education program evaluation. Evaluation is defined as the act of rendering judgments to determine a program's value; two major types are formative and summative. Vocational education evaluation should take a broader and more comprehensive…