State and school district testing activities involving basic reading competency requirements are discussed. The purposes of minimum competency testing in reading include the identification of students who need remedial assistance, and the evaluation of secondary school students regarding graduation requirements. Important considerations regarding…

The accomplishments of Mexican American students have been limited by the level of education completed and by concentration in particular occupations. As part of a larger research project concerning this problem, 259 eighth grade students from Tucson were compared on the basis of sex and ethnicity, with a focus on attitudes toward science. No…

In response to some of the problems identified in the areas of enrollment and retention at Chicago City Colleges, the Student Government Association (SGA) of Kennedy-King Community College (K-KCC) made several suggestions to alleviate these problems, especially as they existed at K-KCC. The first issue perceived by the SGA related to the…

While demonstrating the potential of feminist education to promote positive social change, experiences with the women's studies programs at Staten Island Community College (SICC) and Brooklyn College (BC) also dramatize the need for women's studies to overcome factionalism and middle-class elitism in order to construct a pedagogy for oppressed…

Participants in a teacher workshop compared these two approaches to learning outcomes in adult numeracy: (1) teaching mathematical skills and (2) using and applying mathematics from real life. The first approach was illustrated by an Ontario, Canada, program based on traditional school math, whose outcomes are skill-based and are the following:…

Mathematical performance of young Chinese children in Taiwan as compared to American children beginning as early as first grade has been well-documented. A similar study by Huntsinger, et al, 1995, demonstrated the same phenomenon in comparisons of Chinese-American young children with Euro-American children. Parents influence young children's…

Compiled from information contained in the Program Year 1994-95 Annual Narrative Performance Reports submitted by states to the U.S. Department of Education, this paper shares selected information on recent developments in workplace education programs for adults. Section 1 describes programs that exhibited strong partnerships and collaboration in…

The numbers of vocational education teachers, the number of institutions that provide training for vocational education teachers, and the number of schools that offer vocational education have been declining for the past 10 years or longer; at the same time, the average age of vocational education teachers has risen. As the teacher ranks and the…

Jersey City State College (New Jersey) developed a local evaluation model to assess all salient aspects of the institution's basic skills program. The college's Academic Foundations Program was implemented to address the needs of urban educationally disadvantaged students. It includes faculty and staff development and research, freshman course…

A four-day workshop designed to acquaint faculty members with teaching strategies for combining basic reading skills in English composition was evaluated as very effective by the seven workshop participants. The evaluation results indicated that interdisciplinary staff development seminars can be beneficial to faculty from varied content areas.…

Students failing to master minimum competency tests are categorized as dropouts in this description of the results of and remediation efforts for the statewide Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) Testing Program. TEAMS assesses minimum competency in basic skills at grades 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11-12 exit level. The first…

The Research and Development Utilization Program (RDU) was intended to apply research and development products to local school problems; to develop a problem-solving and product selection process usable by local schools; and to organize a linkage system making national, state, and other external resources available to local school personnel. The…

This paper analyzes the United States community college as a model for adaptation in Latin America. The author argues that there is a growing frustration with the lack of responsiveness of universities to the development needs of societies in Latin America. Higher education continues to be accessible only to the privileged segments of society…

The effectiveness of developmental education policies at a comprehensive community college was investigated using a new student tracking system. A sample of 1,644 students were tracked from fall 1992 until the end of the fall 1994 semester, 1,226 of whom evidenced basic skills and were eligible for college-level courses, and 418 of whom were…

The Testing and Assessment Department of Dawson Technical Institute (Illinois) determined that approximately 25-30 percent of the students taking the entrance Test of Adult Basic Education do not meet the academic level required to start a training program. A competency-based adult reading and math program was developed, and the decision was made…