Although there have been any number of national reading reform efforts over the years, there is little evidence that such efforts have been sustained in schools over time. This study focused on addressing 2 questions: To what extent have Reading First schools in 2 states sustained the key elements of this reform over time? To what extent has…

In 2006, Governor Edward Rendell announced a three-year, $200 million Classrooms for the Future program to provide technology and technology support to schools across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, beginning in the 2006-2007 school year. The purpose of this research study is to examine the change process of the diffusion of technology within…

Professional development is a common and necessary approach to improving teacher quality. However, while teachers are required to participate in professional development activities, it is often the case that they are not involved in selecting and planning those activities, and that professional development may not be closely tied to classroom…

Literacy assessments are transforming the contexts of secondary instruction. This article reports how literacy assessments are shaping the instructional choices of nine English Language Arts teachers who work in three different states in northeastern United States--New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Through interviews, the teachers reported…

Standardized testing, usually in the form of a multiple choice test, has dominated educational reform throughout Mississippi for the past 2 decades. Because of the minimal impact that standardized testing has traditionally had on curriculum decisions and classroom instruction, a paradigm shift in assessment format was adopted in the State from a…

Black and white photographs, descriptive text, and participants' comments profile the New Brunswick schools' experiences with the integration of special and typical elementary school students in regular classrooms. The text defines integration; describes problems with segregation; provides a rationale for integration; discusses learning in…

Expressed concerns about competency-based education implementation by vocational teachers in six school divisions in Virginia were monitored from April 1983 to April 1984 during the last two years of a movement to statewide competency-based education implementation. At six-month intervals--in April and October 1983 and April 1984--vocational…

In 1991, educators at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia began developing ideas for integrating telecommunications into the instructional practices of public school teachers using Virginia's Public Education Network. Teachers from across the state were invited to participate in a telecommunications project called the…

A special 6-week program, designed to increase the scores of low achieving minority eighth-grade students on the ninth grade Texas Education Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) Test, was implemented in 1986 in the Houston Independent School District as "Summer Academies." The students, who voluntarily enrolled in the program, were…

Noting that the growing popularity of year-round schools (extended calendar without increasing the number of school days) has coincided with an increase in school accountability, this report provides a descriptive case study on one year-round school located within a large elementary school district in central Virginia. An optional year-round…

A study examined the attitudes of Florida business teachers toward perceived barriers to implementing the Florida competency-based business curriculum materials and also the characteristics of business teachers who would be most likely to receive and adopt curriculum innovations. During the study, a five-part questionnaire that contained questions…

A study examined the acceptance of the time-shortened articulation (TSA) approach adopted to implement tech prep programs by Idaho postsecondary trade and industrial instructors. From a sample of 143 instructors, 46 usable responses were received. Hall's (1979) Stages of Concern (SoC) model was used to determine if they had accepted the process,…

The Gifted Education Policy Studies Program was designed to address two issues: the status of state and local policies on the identification of gifted students from special populations (culturally diverse, children with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged); and the impact of educational reform movements (cooperative learning and middle…

Pennsylvania's Educational Quality Assessment Program (EQA) provides a school building assessment on each of the ten state adopted goals for quality education. Various teacher attitudes and usage of innovative classroom practices with respect to a series of control variables such as sex, educational level, experience, grade level and community…

Outlines lessons learned by the University of Wisconsin-Stout in implementing two distance education programs, a technology program using interactive television and a hospitality program using Lotus Notes to deliver courses. Topics discussed include program concept vs. technology as stimulus for innovation, program planning/administration,…