"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Improving the Lives of Our High School Students: Alliance and Scholastic Co-Host Invitational High School Literacy…

The European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) intends to consolidate its statutory role of providing information together with reporting on and analyzing development of European Union (EU) Member States and at the European level. (Cedefop is EU's reference center for vocational education and training and provides…

This report documents the problem of educating students with serious emotional disturbance, reviews the legislative and administrative background, and identifies seven strategic targets in a national agenda for these children. Data for these students on academic outcomes, graduation rates, school placement, school absenteeism, dropout rates,…

The Laboratory School in Bielefeld, Germany, is an experimental school that is part of the University of Bielefeld. The Laboratory School is an integrated comprehensive school for children aged 5-16 years. Pupils are not separated by streaming and do not receive letter grades until their 10th year of school. The Laboratory School makes extensive…

This paper, one of a series from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's project "Higher Education and the Economy of the West," summarizes and analyzes economic development and higher education master plans in 16 western states, looking particularly at how planning for economic development and higher education…

An 8-week course on early childhood education focusing on preventing reading difficulties was conducted and evaluated in Haifa, Israel. The course objectives were to: (1) review child development in its relationship to reading; (2) examine reading theories and teaching methods; (3) analyze the effects of the child's environment on reading; (4)…

Evidence suggests that use of multimedia or new media can enhance selected areas of the curriculum. Library planners at the University of Southern California (USC) believe that use of multimedia to transform the World Wide Web into a research forum for scholars in the humanities facilitates and even ensures the eventual use of this material in the…

The Clinton administration's Partnerships for Stronger Families initiative, through working meetings, site visits, and outreach efforts, aimed to promote an ongoing conversation between those working on the front lines of services for children and families and those crafting federal policy and legislation in Washington. The initiative was guided…

This guide discusses the basic requirements for administering Federal Work-Study (FWS) America Reads Challenge programs and outlines specific requirements related to FWS-funded community service positions. These programs offer colleges and universities an opportunity to help improve the reading skills of preschool school and elementary school…

In 1996, individuals associated with the Lifelong Learning Center in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, proposed the formation of a three-district literacy consortium in a tricounty rural area that would cooperatively offer adults residing in the districts the option of earning a standard high school diploma in lieu of a General Educational…

The Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library conducted a project in fiscal year 1992 that involved recruitment, retention, public awareness, training, basic literacy, collection development, tutoring, intergenerational/family, and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. The project served a community of 25,000-50,000 and targeted the…

This booklet contains selected facts relating to Maryland and to the entire Southern United States from the "Fact Book on Higher Education," published by the Southern Region Education Board (SREB). The population increase in the SREB region is expected to remain above the national average, and Maryland is expected to have a projected…

The National School-to-Work Office in collaboration with the National Association for Gifted Children, the Council for Exceptional Children, the Association for the Gifted, and the Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted have identified 11 gifted education/school-to-work (GT/STW) models that are either best practices or unique…

This final report discusses the outcomes of a 4-year federally funded project designed to identify children in Montana who are deaf-blind and to provide training and technical assistance to improve the quality of special education and related services in Montana for children ages birth through 21 who are deaf-blind. The project was devised to meet…

To encourage states to share information about teacher professional development strategies and initiatives the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) sponsors the SHEEO-Eisenhower Education Network, an offshoot of the Eisenhower Professional Development Program, which focuses on long-term, content-specific support for teachers,…