This article presents trends in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R) industry, with an emphasis on the importance of technician training programs as exemplified at the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT) in Mesa, Arizona. The article states that HVAC workers are increasingly helping their consumers "go…

Vacation jobs often mix work and play. For some, the job is their ticket to career happiness. The article's first section describes four jobs specific to entertainment and leisure: (1) cruise ship musician; (2) destination marketing manager; (3) resort activities director; and (4) river rafting guide. The second section helps a person decide if a…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), landmark legislation passed in 2002, has reframed the federal role in setting educational policy. This brief provides an overview of NCLB, how it impacts teaching and learning, a glimpse into its potential reauthorization, and a summary of how Schools Attuned can fit into this policy context.

Rather than continued reliance of high-stakes tests to increase student achievement, a practice for which the author feels there is little supporting evidence, the author urges for educators and educational leaders to work co-operatively to enact insightful, data-driven policies to improve student achievement. In this article, the author argues…

Ensuring that all Arizona children receive the high-quality education they deserve requires an effective teacher in every classroom along with school and district leadership that is focused on raising student achievement. Arizona's educators, from the classroom teacher to the district superintendent, are the most important component of the state's…

This chapter presents lessons learned from a community college in Arizona in implementing dual-enrollment partnership programs.

As Arizona strives for a first-rate educational system, the foundation of care and education for our youngest children remains far too weak. This new report, "A Decade of Data: The Compensation and Credentials of Arizona's Early Care and Education Workforce," marks ten years of data on trends in the wages, benefits, and education levels…

This paper presents the Arizona edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals examine…

Five states (Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida, and Arizona) are currently either administering or field-testing classroom observation systems for certification or employment decisions regarding beginning teachers. In Georgia, a beginning teacher has three years to demonstrate competence. Observations are completed by an external data…

Describes current procedures used for testing bilingual teachers in the United States and focuses on one means of assessment used in Arizona. Examinee questionnaire responses, teacher questionnaire responses and test section analysis all contributed evidence for validity. (33 references) (Author/CK)

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) provided that by the end of the 2005-06 school year, all teachers in core content areas, teaching in public schools, must be "highly qualified" in each subject they teach. Under the law, "highly qualified" means that a teacher is fully licensed through a traditional or alternative route and…

The report compiles information on Arizona's public school programs serving limited-English-proficient (LEP) students, including both bilingual education and English-as-a-Second-Language programs, as mandated by state law. It contains data submitted by school districts, schools, and charter schools concerning primary home language identification,…

This study was conducted as part of a project to develop a competency-based electrical/electronics (E/E) curriculum in Arizona. During this phase of the project, the following tasks were completed: (1) examination of selected E/E jobs in Arizona to develop a list of electronics competencies; (2) tying of electronic competencies to a particular…