The U.S. Congress asked the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to determine the following: (1) to what extent states were spending their Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds and whether the Department of Labor's (Labor's) data accurately reflected available funds; (2) what Labor did to assess how states were managing their WIA spending; and (3)…

This document, which is intended for use by adult literacy programs in Saskatchewan, Canada, consists of three questionnaires. The questionnaires were developed under the guidance of Saskatchewan's 11-member Good Practice Task Force to give adult literacy programs an opportunity to reflect on their current initiatives, identify their strengths,…

State governors have an immense stake in building a workforce training and education system capable of producing the skilled workers needed to secure the country's economic future. In doing so, states must face the following challenges: (1) many state workforce systems do not reflect market needs; (2) public education is falling short in preparing…

This book presents a selection of papers from the annual, international, interdisciplinary conference of the World Association for Case Method Research & Application. Papers are categorized into six areas: (1) "Case Studies and Research" (e.g., subjectivity as a source of insight in case study research, evolution of a teaching case,…

In July 2000, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 officially replaced the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). WIA requires individual assessment of skill levels and service needs and development of an individual service strategy for each youth participant. WIA requires all youth programs to make 10 program elements available to all…

The passage of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Amendments of 1998 (Perkins III) and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) marked a new era in the performance accountability partnership among the states, the U.S. Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). Evaluation of vocational education…

This report contains the results of a pilot survey of employer satisfaction with Connecticut's public college graduates from the class of 2003 conducted by the Department of Higher Education (DHE) in the spring of 2005. The project was part of a four-state project entitled, "Defining Best Practices for Responsible Accountability Models in…

The focus of the Forum's eleventh Study Group report is assessing what it will take for the state to respond to the court's findings in the decade-old Leandro lawsuit, a suit that challenged, among other things, the constitutionality of the state's current system of financing schools. The essence of the court's ruling is that: The state, as judged…

This workbook, which is designed primarily for secondary school administrators involved in planning youth apprenticeship programs, explains approaches to youth apprenticeship that have evolved from operation of the Pickens County Youth Apprenticeship Initiative (PCYAI) in Easley, South Carolina. Discussed first are guiding principles regarding the…

This report is designed to support the planning and implementation of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (SECCS) Initiative. It addresses a set of principles that these agencies can use to advance their planning process, reach out to new partners, develop collaborative strategies, and build a…

Beginners in many disciplines learn that correlation never proves causation, but sometimes, even in public health, correlation, mistaken for causation, becomes the basis for policy and great expenditures of public and private money. "True experiments" with random assignment to experimental and control groups hold a special place in the…

The Central Educational Center (CEC) in Newnan, Georgia, is a unique partnership of local businesses and industries, the Coweta County Schools, and West Central Technical College. The CEC's programs were designed to address key concerns of Coweta County educators, parents, business owners and managers, college administrators, and students. The…

Since the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) was enacted in 1998, considerable efforts have been expended at the federal, state, and local levels to effect the transition to the new system mandated by WIA. Several states phased into the new system in July 1999, and all other states followed in mid-2000. Active participation by partner agencies has…

This document, which draws heavily on lessons learned during 11 years of the Southern Regional Education Board's High Schools That Work initiative, is intended to help state leaders review their existing system for assessing accountability in vocational education or plan such a system. The document begins with a discussion of the purpose of…

The key features of student achievement were examined at twelve sixth form colleges (SFCs) in the United Kingdom with an emphasis on strategies to maintain and improve performance. It was found that students at SFCs have on average higher prior attainment and suffer less deprivation than their counterparts in General Further Education and Tertiary…