When done reliably and efficiently, measuring school climate can help improve schools' vital signs and help state boards of education realize their goals and objectives for the system as a whole. Moreover, because it is as consequential to schools as checking heart rates and blood pressure are to humans, schools should always use climate measures…

Professors from across the academic disciplines at Council for Christian College & Universities (CCCU) institutions have traditionally excelled in their teaching. In recent years, CCCU faculty have also increasingly been expected to conduct research and to publish scholarly work. As CCCU institutions expand research and scholarship…

This paper reviews state strategies for incorporating performance assessment in policy and practice. Specifically, the paper reviews the use of performance assessment in 12 states in the Innovation Lab Network, a group committed to developing systems of assessment that provide meaningful measures of college and career readiness. This review…

Restorative justice is a non-punitive form of discipline and is applied in educational settings to address discipline disparities. This qualitative descriptive single case study explored how high school teachers describe restorative justice practices as an influence on the behavior of Hispanic students in an urban high school in Iowa. Data were…

Since the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) launched the Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) in 2011, accountability measures have sprung up in just about every corner of higher education. There is the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the National Governors Association's Complete to Compete program,…

Loras College senior biology and biology research majors are required to take a comprehensive exam, give an oral presentation, write this talk into their thesis and participate in an exit interview with a non-biology faculty member before they graduate. Details of these capstone experiences will be discussed further. Other capstone experiences…

This study analyzes end of course institutional teaching evaluations (ITEs) done anonymously by students in a pre-service teacher education course over a 15-year span. The purpose was to determine if and how the ITE findings might inform practice and relate to teaching metaphors as a tool of study. Analysis revealed: (a) teacher effectiveness…

The "Renaissance Partnership", a consortium of eleven universities and their partner schools, was one of the first twenty-five Teacher Quality Enhancement Projects funded in 1999. The Project's two primary goals, "to become accountable for the impact of teacher graduates on the students they teach" and "to institutionalize…

At least three states have asked for permission to cut back on the money they provide districts for special education, under a built-in escape clause in the federal special education law that is aimed at financially struggling states. Iowa and Kansas have both been granted a waiver, which under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act…

In this study specific factors were examined to determine their ability to influence fifth-year earnings of community college students in the Manufacturing/Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) career cluster and the Arts/Audiovisual/Technology/ Communication career cluster. State and national data sets from Iowa's Management…

As the accountability movement has gained momentum, policy makers and educators have strived to strike a difficult balance between the sometimes competing demands at the local, state, and federal levels. Efforts to improve accountability and teacher evaluation have taken an especially unique route in Iowa, where local control and resistance to…

This article reports how two prominent Democrats are demanding to know more about the problems identified in the implementation of the federal Reading First program, including whether criminal violations may have occurred and what Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings may have known about the problems while she was a White House aide. In the…

A Web site can be the unifying force among schools with in a district. Many approaches work. Anyone who examines a few school district Web sites will appreciate the variation in content and design each provides. For example, Des Moines Iowa Public Schools, a district in which many in the community speak a second language, provides Web content in…

This article addresses conflicting statements about the impact of accountability policies in which some argue that testing undermines good teaching, while others claim that it stimulates improvement. The authors begin with the assumption that it is important to explore implementers' cognitive perspectives in order to understand a policy's effects.…

This scholarly paper describes and analyzes the role of career and technical education (CTE) in Iowa community colleges. Iowa's community colleges are doing a good job of responding to the changing workforce needs of the state and providing smooth career pathways. However, changes in the population and economy of the state will call for further…