In the wake of January 1988 takeover legislation to improve education in the State of New Jersey, this paper describes and justifies the strict state three-tier monitoring system of school district educational standards. School districts that need improvement after the first level of monitoring must develop an improvement plan to overcome their…

This document summarizes State Education Agencies' (SEA) 1985-86 State Performance Reports for Chapter 1. These reports provide data on Local Education Agency (LEA) and State Agency Neglected or Delinquent compensatory education programs, in terms of the size of the population of educationally deprived students served, the characteristics of that…

This compilation of tables and a brief text on the states' educational programs emphasizes demographic and fiscal background information. Public school system characteristics by state show the following: number of school districts, number enrolled, school age population estimates, percent of persons age 5-17 years in households below the poverty…

State education agency (SEA) activities to coordinate programs for children and youth were the focus of this report. The incentives and disincentives to coordination and interagency cooperation at the state level were investigated by case studies in Pennsylvania, Colorado, California, and Washington. In particular, the study examined how federal…

A study of state education agency (SEA) activities investigated the incentives and disincentives to coordination and interagency cooperation at the state level as well as the effects of federal initiatives and recent fiscal strains on these activities. Research focused on how much coordination currently exists nationwide; case studies of…

Because 66 of New Mexico's 89 public school districts experienced declines in 1981-82 enrollments and most were unable to decrease educational costs at the same rate as their decline in enrollment, the legislature requested a study on effects of declining enrollment and possible adjustments to the school distribution funding formula to cushion…

This paper sets forth and clarifies state-level policy issues that are implicit in the recommendations for reform provided by recent major reports on the status of American education. For each report under consideration, four questions are posed: (1) Who is recommending what? (2) Does the recommendation make sense in a state's total program? (3)…

Summarizing the second year of a 3-year evaluation project, this nine-chapter report focuses on three Utah programs under Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The first program, Title IV-Part B (IV-B), provides funds for local education agency (LEA) purchases of educational materials and equipment; the second, Title IV-Part C…

The program of the 1981 Appalachia Educational Laboratory Forum was based on the theme of improving schools and using research and development. The first section of this report contains summaries of presentations made at the forum. In the first presentation, a discussion is given on outcome-based education, the merits and drawbacks of mastery…

In addressing three aspects of teacher education--initial preparation, continuing education, and certification--state departments of education must be outcome-oriented and leave teacher education institutions and school districts free to explore alternate delivery systems. The state's involvement in initial preparation of teachers should be to…

A new classification of instructional programs is presented that includes terms and definitions for describing instructional programs for all of education. The classification should be helpful in the tasks of collecting, recording, reporting, analyzing, interpreting, and disseminating data about instructional programs. Information is presented on…

Produced as part of the Statewide Assessment of Educational Needs (SWAN) intended to study statewide educational needs as they relate to the mission of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), this technical report presents the methods and findings of the administrator survey. The administrator survey was done to examine the…

The evaluation data for this report on the Elementary Secondary Education Act Title IV Programs in New Jersey include published material, "fugitive" documents from the files of New Jersey Department of Education staff, statistical information compiled especially for this study, numerous interviews with members of the Department and…

The Bi-Regional Educational Improvement Forum in Atlanta, Georgia (November 1979) considered three areas of school improvement, including State Department of Education (SEA) delivery systems and the use of technology to improve schooling. The three forum articles concerned with delivery systems treat the transformation of policies emanating from…

This monograph presents a history of educational services in New York State. Chapter 1 summarizes the history of the University of the State of New York, its Board of Regents, early development, and unification of the university and the Department of Public Instruction. Chapter 2 reviews the State Education Department's history and legal…