Findings from 20 interviews conducted with individuals involved in the California New Teacher Project, which is administered by the California Department of Education and the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, are reported to assess the policy environment for new teacher support and assessment programs. The study was conducted by the Southwest…

Language role and language policy in education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are discussed. First, the history of language policy since the turn of the century is chronicled briefly. The present policy of requiring initial literacy education in English is described and its critics cited, and current proposals to provide literacy education in each…

Great Britain's systems of continuing education (CE) and further education (FE) were compared within the context of change and decline in Great Britain's infrastructure and within the framework of an "index of innovation." Various options are listed for giving nontraditional adult students greater autonomy with respect to the following…

The four papers in this report summarize the major findings of the On the Right Track Project, a joint effort of the Education Testing Service and the National Urban League. The first paper, "Six Urban School Districts: Their Middle Grade Mathematics Grouping Policies and Practices" (Ruth B. Ekstrom), describes the six school districts…

The central issue in education today is whether education has kept up with the fundamental and far-reaching changes in the economic and social structure of this nation. We must have a new ideal of American education grounded in the practical and hard-earned lessons of the last 10 years: that children who come to school healthy are engaged and…

The United Kingdom has a history of performance assessment even for accountability purposes, as the public examinations (standardized achievement tests) at age 16 demonstrate. What the country does not have is a strong history in the area of equity. Debate and policy-making, when concerned at all, have been concentrated on equality of opportunity,…

One of a series of studies related to the Delphi research project: "Policy Instruments for Higher Education in the Western Europe of the Future", this paper presents material for the discussion and formulation of a European higher education policy in light of the single market introduction in 1992. The first chapter, "Hypothesis and…

Programs and curricula in vocational education in Taiwan have traditionally been linked to the nation's priority of economic development. The current vocational education system originated in the 1950s. In the 1970s, public free education was extended from 6 years of elementary school education to include an additional 3 years of junior high…

The status and effects of state-initiated educational reform were studied for local school districts in seven areas of educational improvement (EI): (1) state-mandated testing of students; (2) state curricular outcomes; (3) summer remediation; (4) state evaluation of local districts; (5) more stringent teacher requirements; (6) mentoring; and (7)…

The career ladder is an incentive plan widely considered in response to perceptions of decline in teaching effectiveness and as a method of employment retention. Organizational research demonstrates the importance of meaningful work and authority relationship factors in determining employee attitudes. This study examines effects of career ladders…

This study extends previous research on labor market effects of vocational education by estimating the relationship between vocational education in high school and the intervening factors in its relationship to labor market outcomes. The strategy is to use data from a stratified national longitudinal survey to estimate a simplified, reduced-form…

When the nation of Pakistan was first created, school entrance and civil service examinations were administered in a foreign language--English. A major concern is that enrollment in primary education only increased from 17 percent in 1947 to 48 percent in 1983, with stil a very high dropout rate. National and province-wide boards of education were…

Collectivist versus individualistic attitudes in China and the United States are compared with particular emphasis on the effects of these attitudes on educational objectives and practice in China. Individualism is interpreted to include attitudes such as personal liberty, individual initiative, moral relativism, and self-direction. This…

Major educational reforms are needed to make institutions of higher education responsive to the needs of Hispanics and other minorities. Three basic changes are essential to reform in higher education for Hispanics: increasing the number of Hispanics in faculty and administrative positions; increasing the representation of Hispanics in the student…

Adult and continuing education are undergoing simultaneous processes of institutionalization (adding schools for adults) and deinstitutionalization (broadening the scope of interventions and focusing on learning processes inside and outside schools). Lifelong learning assumes that learning takes place in all spheres of life, including the…