One way to improve the effectiveness of training programs is a four-step process that means getting back to basics: (1) assess employees' literacy; (2) sell basic skills training to management; (3) create trust; and (4) set up the program. (JOW)

Two educators describe the changes in a severely retarded, multiply disabled 12-year-old resulting from a functional curriculum approach. Assessment of his life needs and skills produced a new curriculum with emphasis on age appropriate interests. (CL)

Discusses the use of psychoanalytic techniques to probe written works for their inherent biases of interpretation. Uses the authors' experience of teaching basic writers to analyze Freud's "Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria," in order to expose Freud's biases in interpreting Dora's experiences. (JC)

This Opportunity 08 position paper advises that the next President of the United States should focus on lifting the achievement levels of our nation's schoolchildren. It recommends that the new President should mount a determined effort, together with states and local school districts, to boost the academic performance of low achievers by: (1)…

An analysis of the problems of an illiterate woman who learned to read as an adult, based on oral history techniques supplemented by information from teachers, family, and friends, is presented in this paper. An account of the woman's life is first presented to show her complete inability to read or write through ten years of schooling, the…

The 1990 amendments to the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984 require the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE) to evaluate integration of academic and vocational education. NAVE's study has three integration goals: (1) to examine the themes and research issues; (2) to identify data and data gaps; and (3) to address…

Various topics concerning assessment in higher education are considered in five papers. In "Defining and Measuring the Competencies of a Liberal Arts Education," David G. Winter proposes that liberal arts competencies can be assessed by creative new quantitative strategies and outlines five important criteria, or standards, as well as measures of…

The state of Washington's workforce development system agenda focused in 2002 on these four goals: (1) closing a perceived job skills gap; (2) training incumbent and dislocated workers in order to prepare them for changes in the economy; (3) achieving wage progression for low income individuals; and (4) integrating workforce development programs…