During the 1987 and 1988 fiscal years, the Illinois State Board of Education supported a number of vocational education curriculum-related activities. These activities were required by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act, which mandated the establishment of technical committees to advise on curricular needs of the state and by a state…

In 1985-1986, the mission of Connecticut's Committee on Four-Year-Olds, Their Families, and the Public Schools was to develop strategies to alleviate structural and systematic problems that could diminish the success of expanded early intervention efforts in the state. This report of the yearlong effort begins with a review of the committee's work…

This report summarizes accomplishments of the ESCAPE (Eastern Stream Child Abuse Prevention and Education) Project over its final two years and identifies products developed under its auspices during this period. An introduction describes the project which was initiated in 1982 to establish and reduce the incidence of child maltreatment in the…

Considerations in the design and implementation of the technical assistance (TA) system for supporting Pennsylvania's statewide school improvement initiative are analyzed. After a brief introduction, the authors describe the key features of the initiative, called Long-Range Planning for School Improvement (LRPSI). They briefly review recent…

This digest describes types of statewide programs for the training of adult educators. Eight types of programs involving 19 states are outlined, and contacts for each are given. These programs are included: Michigan Staff Development Collaborative, the Iowa Community College Telenetwork (or Telenet), Virginia Consultant Training Institute to…

By providing access to samples of forms and other evaluation/management documentation, this compendium provides a working tool so that state projects can share methodologies for gathering data and applying it for both summative and formative evaluation purposes. This compendium may also serve to indicate procedural gaps in some projects, or to…

This report discusses a study that examined state technical assistance (TA) infrastructures that support research-based practices for improved outcomes for students with disabilities served under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The 10 participating states included: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Oklahoma,…

The Specialized Health Needs Interagency Collaboration is a statewide technical assistance project to assist school and related-services personnel in Maryland to manage the specialized health needs of students with developmental disabilities and handicapping conditions within the educational setting. The project's purpose, scope, staffing,…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of the Vermont State Project for Children and Youth with Deaf-Blindness, a 3-year federally supported project to provide statewide services, training, and technical assistance to Vermont children (birth to age 21) with deaf-blindness, their families, and service providers. Throughout the…

This report describes activities and accomplishments of the Oregon Project for Services to Children and Youth with Deaf-Blindness, a 3-year federally supported project to ensure effective educational services for this population and provide support for families and service providers. The project focused on: (1) identifying additional children with…

This paper addresses the educational, technical, legal, and practical challenges states must confront as they consider the content of the assessment, its technical quality, the capacity of educators and the public to use the results of the assessment, the benefits and additional complications of performance testing, and the overall tension betwen…

This report covers a number of aspects of the implementation of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Chapter 1 is an introduction. Chapter 2 discusses state-level organization and decision making, involving such questions as relations among the parties, designations of the Service Delivery Areas (SDAs), the state role in Title III, and Title…

A long-range school improvement program, under the direction of the Pennsylvania State Department of Education, was developed to coordinate and articulate the curriculum, as well as to structure school management and other district operations. Featured in the plan are: (1) a statewide testing program called "Educational Quality…

A description is given of the structure and operation of 29 intermediate administrative units which provide consulting, advisory, administrative, or statistical services to local school districts in Pennsylvania. The basic services rendered by the units are in the areas of: (1) curriculum development and instructional improvement; (2) management;…

This manual presents a set of guidelines for persons working at a state level to increase the capacity of the state to plan, manage and deliver child and family services. Part I discusses barriers to change, and outlines the skills and attributes of the capacity builder. Part II briefly describes the actual capacity building process, including…