This report describes five workshops conducted throughout California to enable educators from high schools and community colleges to coalesce into career guidance task forces for their schools and to learn about current career guidance concepts and practices. Activities and personnel who supported the project are presented according to their…

Standards-based professional development can have a positive effect on classroom practice, particularly in terms of reform-oriented practices. It can also have a positive effect on student achievement. But the research is very mixed. Research/evaluation designs cannot always attribute effects to a specific professional development opportunity,…

This paper evaluates whether or not there is a direct academic-achievement benefit from additional expenditures on education in the United States. Numerous critics have said that education is already overfunded and that it can never be funded enough to make any appreciable difference. Berliner's study of 900 school districts in Texas in the 1993…

Highlights the strengths of the Advanced Placement American Government and Politics program and observes the program produces students who do well in college. Mentions a major weakness is the educational background of the instructors, and recommends using summer teaching institutes to ensure a minimal level of competency. (NL)

Presents eight themes concerning the superintendents' roles in the 1990s that demand a bold restructuring of school leadership. Future superintendents must project passionate instructional leadership, recapture the focus on student learning, coordinate community child services, redefine success with performance-based assessment, fight for…

Describes a Delaware Technical and Community College certificate program, training K-12 faculty in computer-based competencies such as word processing, databases, e-mail, Internet usage, and development of online courses. Describes seven principles of good program design, the processes for program development, delivery modes, and indicators of…

Over the past two decades, scholars and practitioners in a variety of industries have considered work redesign among a constellation of strategies to promote employee recruitment and retention, development, motivation, and performance. Although educational policymakers in the middle to late 1990s shifted their attention to standards, systemic…

"A Computer for Every Teacher" was a project of the Indiana Department of Education to provide each teacher and administrator in four schools with a computer and printer for personal and professional use. This equipment was accompanied by software and realistic amounts of training. Its focus was to improve teacher productivity and to enhance…

Descriptive data about teachers in America were analyzed in terms of the international dimension of education and the social context in which schools operate. Characteristics of teachers, such as age, gender, race, experience, education, and the conditions under which they work, provided a profile of the "typical" teacher. The model…

The Utah Career Ladder System was evaluated, in an effort to provide policy options for Phase II of the Career Ladder implementation in Utah and present policy recommendations. Five major data collection efforts were made: (1) analysis of district career ladder plans from 1985-86 through 1987-88; (2) a telephone survey of Utah's 40 superintendents…

The Better Teaching--Better Writing program, as implemented in the School District of Webster Groves (MO), has four objectives: (1) by the completion of a 1979 Summer Writing Institute, the 19 participants would demonstrate increased knowledge about the literature and research in the teaching of writing, about teaching of writing approaches, and…

An educational workshop series was created to prepare clinical coordinators in Physician's Assistant (PA) programs to assist clinical instructors and preceptors in designing, implementing, and evaluating learning experiences for PA students that focus on clinical skills. Six goals were established: (1) develop a strategy for outlining the student…

A series of Outward Bound programs and experiences was planned for El Paso County, Colorado, school teachers to increase their awareness of their personal characteristics, especially those that might enhance learning on the part of their students. Part of the planning for the program involved a survey of county high school teachers, counselors,…

Interviews were conducted with 20 Scottish special education teachers who undertook a one-year, full-time inservice course. Teachers cited increased confidence, personal and professional development, deeper thinking, and increased flexibility and awareness as gains from the course; specific skills, which are emphasized in short inservice courses,…

Reports and discusses data on incentives being considered to improve the quality and quantity of science in precollege institutions. Incentives (organized into several categories) focus on bringing new individuals into science teaching and upgrading those with science teaching assignments who are not trained to teach science. (JN)