ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
A Roadmap to Competitive Integrated Employment: Strategies for Provider Transformation. Bringing Employment First to Scale, Issue No. 20
Author: Kamau, Esther
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Equal Opportunities (Jobs),Disabilities,Federal Legislation,Disability Discrimination,Employers,Change Strategies,Goal Orientation,Work Environment,Job Placement,Interpersonal Communication,Resource Allocation,Professional Development,Employer Employee Relationship,Family Involvement,Job Performance,Quality Assurance,Holistic Approach,Community Involvement

Competitive integrated employment is defined within the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA, 2014) as full-time or part-time work at minimum wage or higher, with wages and benefits similar to those without disabilities performing the same work, and fully integrated with coworkers without disabilities. The Act requires that states ensure employment is offered as a priority outcome for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) partnered with The Arc of the United States to identify ten elements of successful organizational transformation to competitive integrated employment. They asked four providers who successfully closed sheltered workshops to provide implementation strategies that they used according to each of the ten elements. This brief: (1) defines each element; (2) explains why it is valuable to the change process; and (3) offers a set of considerations to providers. [The production of this report was supported by the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Advancing Employment for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a project of ThinkWork! at the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).]
The Future of Work Demands High-Quality Education Beyond High School
Author: Lumina Foundation
Date: 2020-02-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Futures (of Society),Employment,Education Work Relationship,Postsecondary Education,Automation,Skill Development,Unskilled Workers,Semiskilled Workers,Credentials,Job Skills,Career Readiness,Job Security

Economists, policymakers and other experts spend a great deal of time talking about the &quot;future of work,&quot; but in many ways, the future is already here. Profound changes are already affecting our workforce and economy, including globalization, automation, and artificial intelligence. We need to adapt to these changes by adequately investing in the education and training of our workers, because we're far behind where we need to be.
Workforce Development in Michigan. A Mackinac Center Report
Author: Estelle, Sarah
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Labor Force Development,Vocational Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Career Development,Federal Programs,State Programs,Federal Aid,State Aid,Postsecondary Education,Technical Institutes,Industry,Unions,Professional Associations,Educational Improvement,Career Planning,Labor Market,Barriers,Certification,Training

This report provides a survey of existing workforce development efforts in Michigan, both public and private. It includes a review of career and technical education provided by K-12 school districts, occupational training programs provided through community colleges, as well as job training offered by for-profit entities, unions, industry associations and private, nonprofit organizations. After reviewing these current programs, the report offers general skepticism about the ability of the state to provide the type of workforce development that many politicians claim is needed.
Michigan School Privatization Survey 2017. A Mackinac Center Report
Author: Hohman, James M.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Surveys,State Surveys,Privatization,Public Schools,School Districts,Outsourcing,Food Service,School Maintenance,Transportation,Educational Trends,Satisfaction

In 2001, contracting out for school support services by Michigan school districts was a rare practice. Less than one in three districts used private providers for food, custodial or transportation services. Today, 16 years later, the tables have completely turned: it is more unusual to find a district that does not outsource at least one of these support services than to find one that does. The 2017 survey results contained in this report show that 71.5 percent of Michigan school districts outsource at least one of the three services, a slight increase from last year's 70.6 percent. While food service contracting stayed stable, the number of districts outsourcing custodial and transportation services increased slightly from last year. All have trended upwards in recent years, with custodial services showing the largest increase, growing from 6.6 percent in 2003 to 52.6 percent in 2017. The survey was first conducted in 2001, then again in 2003 and every year since 2005, making this year's report the 15th edition. [For &quot;Michigan School Privatization Survey 2016. A Mackinac Center Report,&quot; see ED568639.]
Michigan School Privatization Survey 2018. A Mackinac Center Report
Author: Hohman, James M.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Surveys,State Surveys,Privatization,Public Schools,School Districts,Outsourcing,Food Service,School Maintenance,Transportation,Educational Trends,Labor Market,Recruitment,Unemployment,Economic Climate,Satisfaction

Michigan's public school districts are government entities that occasionally use private contractors to provide them with support services. The 2018 privatization survey found that 70.5 percent of Michigan's school districts -- 380 of the 539 districts in the state -- contract out for food, custodial or transportation services. This is a slight decline from 2017, when the number was 71.1 percent. This is the fourth consecutive year in which roughly 70 percent of districts contracted out at least one of these three services. A dozen districts started a contract for one or more services and 15 districts brought a service back in house between the 2017 survey and the 2018 survey. It is not clear why privatization has been stuck at 70 percent recently. Districts officials reported that finding staff, whether directly or through contracting, has been a challenge. This may because of the tightening labor market. The state's unemployment rate declined from 14.6 percent at the height of the Great Recession to the current 4.0 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a tight labor market, employers have a hard time filling low-wage jobs, such as those in school support services. [For &quot;Michigan School Privatization Survey 2017. A Mackinac Center Report,&quot; see ED603606.]
Michigan School Privatization Survey 2019. A Mackinac Center Report
Author: Hohman, James M.
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Surveys,State Surveys,Privatization,Public Schools,School Districts,Outsourcing,Food Service,School Maintenance,Transportation,Satisfaction,Educational Trends,Cost Effectiveness

Public school districts use private contractors to provide support services in an effort to save money, improve services and better prioritize district resources. The Mackinac Center has surveyed school districts about their use of contractors since 2001. This year's survey revealed that 69.7% of schools contract out for food, custodial or transportation services. The portion of districts contracting out for support services increased from 31% in 2001 to a high of 71.1% in 2017. This represents a dramatic change in the operations of school districts: hiring private sector support services grew from a somewhat unusual practice to a commonplace occurrence. The primary reason schools contract out for these services is to save money. There is a large incentive to take advantage of outsourcing if it can provide the same or better quality of service at a lower price than the district can achieve itself. This year, 375 school districts used contracted services. This was a small decrease from 2018 when 378 districts maintained private contracts, and the second consecutive year that the number of districts that contract out decreased. Districts that brought services back in-house tend to cite cost-effectiveness or service quality concerns as reasons for ending their third-party contracts. Fewer districts with contracted services might be an indication of improved fiscal stability. In most circumstances, districts seek bids for private services when there is a strong need to save on costs. [For &quot;Michigan School Privatization Survey 2018. A Mackinac Center Report,&quot; see ED603607.]
A Framework to Evaluate Cognitive Complexity in Mathematics Assessments
Author: Achieve, Inc.
Date: 2019-09-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Mathematics Tests,Difficulty Level,Evaluation Criteria,Cognitive Processes,Test Items,Classification,Evaluation Methods

In 2013, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), working collaboratively with state education agencies, released a set of criteria for states to use to evaluate and procure high-quality assessments. The mathematics section of the document included five content-specific criteria to evaluate alignment of assessments to college- and career-ready mathematics standards (C.1-C.5). In 2016, both the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) used the criteria to evaluate a set of statewide summative assessments: ACT Aspire, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), PARCC, and Smarter Balanced. Fordham examined grades 5 and 8 assessments, while HumRRO evaluated high school assessments. Achieve, in partnership with Student Achievement Partners and in consultation with other content and assessment experts, worked to make these improvements, and in 2018 used the updated methodology to review the ACT. This brief describes efforts to address the evaluation of two mathematics criteria--Assessing a balance of concepts, procedures, and applications (C.2) and Requiring a range of cognitive demand (C.4)--to provide conceptual and methodological clarity for states designing summative assessments, assessment developers, and organizations evaluating assessment alignment and quality. Both criteria C.2 and C.4 are interrelated. First, this report describes Achieve's approach to addressing C.2: Assessing a balance of concepts, procedures, and applications, which Fordham in their review was not able to fully evaluate. Second, it examines C.4: Requiring a range of cognitive demand, which traditionally has used Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) as its lens. Achieve proposes a new mathematics-specific approach to measuring cognitive complexity for C.4, and which draws on the methodology developed for C.2.
A Framework to Evaluate Cognitive Complexity in Science Assessments
Author: Achieve, Inc.
Date: 2019-09-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Difficulty Level,Evaluation Criteria,Cognitive Processes,Test Items,Evaluation Methods,Science Tests,Summative Evaluation,Elementary Secondary Education,Task Analysis,Item Analysis

Assessment is a key lever for educational improvement. Assessments can be used to monitor, signal, and influence science teaching and learning -- provided that they are of high quality, reflect the rigor and intent of academic standards, and elicit meaningful student performances. Since the release of &quot;A Framework for K-12 Science Education&quot; and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), assessment systems are fundamentally changing to surface students' use of disciplinary core ideas (DCI), scientific and engineering practices (SEP), and crosscutting concepts (CCC) &quot;together in service of sense-making&quot; about a phenomenon or problem. As states and districts develop new assessment systems, they need support for developing assessments that balance the vision and integrity of multi-dimensional standards with ensuring that they are sensitive to varying levels of student performance. This brief describes a new approach to capturing and communicating the complexity of summative assessment items and tasks designed for three-dimensional standards that can be used to ensure that all learners can make their thinking and abilities visible without compromising the rigor and expectations of the standards. This draft framework for evaluating cognitive complexity in science assessments intentionally builds on expectations for student performance provided by the &quot;Framework for K-12 Science Education&quot; and standards like the NGSS. This complexity framework can be used to determine the degree to which an assessment task asks students to engage in sense-making, a cornerstone of NGSS assessments and performance. [Achieve developed version 1 of this complexity framework for science assessment in collaboration with Miray Tekkumru-Kisa. Additional funding for this work was provided by Chevron.]
Current Evidence on the Effects of Intensive Early Reading Interventions
Author: Wanzek, Jeanne
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Reading Instruction,Early Intervention,Reading Difficulties,At Risk Students,Instructional Effectiveness,Elementary School Students,Kindergarten,Student Characteristics,Publications,Educational Research,Journal Articles,Outcomes of Education,Primary Education

Many students at-risk for or identified with reading disabilities need intensive reading interventions. This meta-analysis provides an update to the Wanzek and Vaughn (2007) synthesis on intensive early reading interventions. Effects from 25 reading intervention studies are analyzed to examine the overall effect of intensive early reading interventions as well as relationships between intervention and student characteristics related to outcomes. The weighted mean effect size estimate (ES = 0.39), with a mean effect size adjusted for publication bias (ES = 0.28), both significantly different from zero, suggested intensive, early reading interventions resulted in positive outcomes for early struggling readers in kindergarten through third grades. There was no statistically significant or meaningful heterogeneity in the study-wise effect sizes. Exploratory examination of time in intervention, instructional group size, initial reading achievement, and date of publication are provided. [This paper was published in &quot;Journal of Learning Disabilities&quot; v51 p612-624 2018 (EJ1192427).]
Using &quot;n&quot;-Level Structural Equation Models for Causal Modeling in Fully Nested, Partially Nested, and Cross-Classified Randomized Controlled Trials
Author: Petscher, Yaacov
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Structural Equation Models,Causal Models,Randomized Controlled Trials,Hierarchical Linear Modeling,Students,Educational Research

Complex data structures are ubiquitous in psychological research, especially in educational settings. In the context of randomized controlled trials, students are nested in classrooms but may be cross-classified by other units, such as small groups. Further, in many cases only some students may be nested within a unit while other students may not. Such instances of partial nesting requires a more flexible framework for estimating treatment effects so that the model coefficients are correctly estimate. Although several recommendations have been offered to the field on handling partially nested data, few are comprehensive in their treatment of manifest and latent variables in the context of partial nesting, full nesting, and cross-classification. The present study introduces &quot;n&quot;-level SEM (Mehta, 2013a) as a flexible measurement and analytic framework for the estimation of treatment effects for complex data structures that frequently present in randomized controlled trials. In this tutorial, we explore how the notation of &quot;n&quot;-level SEM allows for parsimonious model specification whether data are observed or latent and in the presence of partial nested or cross-classified designs. By using the xxm package in R, the advantage of using &quot;n&quot;-level SEM framework is demonstrated through five examples for single outcome manifest variables, as in the traditional multilevel model, as well as latent applications as in multilevel SEM. [This paper was published in &quot;Educational and Psychological Measurement&quot; v79 p1075-1102 2019 (EJ1227460).]
Student Mobility Scholarships: Helping Families Access the Best Schools. A Mackinac Center Report
Author: Degrow, Ben
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Student Mobility,Access to Education,Family Programs,School Choice,Student Transportation,Eligibility,Pilot Projects,Urban Areas,Economically Disadvantaged,Public Schools,Bus Transportation,State Aid,Charter Schools,Barriers,School Districts,Scholarship Funds,Elementary Secondary Education,State Legislation

In Michigan's lower-income urban communities, where educational options are most heavily in demand, accessing the most suitable and desired schools is often limited by the availability and affordability of convenient transportation. Michigan could support low-income families' efforts to transport their children to better schools and boost these children's chances for upward socioeconomic mobility by creating Student Mobility Scholarships. A transportation scholarship plan is rooted in the idea of providing a more level playing field for Michigan's most economically disadvantaged families. Charter schools and other public school choice programs have expanded opportunities for students to choose different educational settings that serve them better, and these options are especially important for low-income students who make use of them at a disproportionately high rate. Two obstacles to exercising educational choice are commonly identified: lack of access to meaningful and accurate information on school performance and a lack of affordable, reliable transportation. Student Mobility Scholarships would be designed to make educational choice more equitable by removing that second barrier.
The Michigan Context and Performance Report Card: Public Elementary &amp; Middle Schools, 2019
Author: DeGrow, Ben
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Elementary School Students,Middle School Students,Educational Quality,Public Schools,Elementary Schools,Middle Schools,Academic Achievement,Poverty,Institutional Characteristics,Standardized Tests,Scores,Educational Improvement,High Achievement,Achievement Gains,Low Achievement

This publication marks the fourth edition of the Context and Performance (CAP) Report Card for Michigan elementary and middle schools, published every two years since 2013. The goal is to compare Michigan schools' relative performance by factoring in the role student poverty plays in affecting academic achievement. The CAP Report Card uses multiple years of student achievement data so that a single year's results do not significantly influence a school's grade. The past two editions each relied on three years of academic performance data -- based exclusively on either the old Michigan Educational Assessment Program, or MEAP, or the current Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP. The 2019 report card relies on four full years of data, making use of the fact that students consistently took the same M-STEP tests over the period covered for this analysis. [For the 2017 report card, see ED588533.]
Indiana Dual Credit: Frequently Asked Questions
Author: Indiana Department of Education
Date: 2019-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Dual Enrollment,High School Students,College Credits,High Schools,Advanced Placement,Higher Education,Vocational Education,Liberal Arts,Transfer Policy,College Readiness,Financial Support,Program Descriptions,Academically Gifted,Acceleration (Education)

In Indiana, 'dual credit' is the term given to courses in which high school students have the opportunity to earn both high school and college credits in the same course. Dual credit courses are taught by high school faculty, college faculty, or adjunct college faculty either at the high school, at the college or university, or sometimes through online courses or distance education. Dual credit is offered by both state and independent (private, regionally accredited) colleges and universities (IC 21-43-1-2.5). This report shares general information about dual credit in Indiana and provides answers to frequently asked questions that relate to dual credit and Indiana high school students, secondary and post-secondary requirements, and secondary and post-secondary partnerships. A preferred provider list for high school delivery and dual credit post-secondary contact information are also included.
Technical Assistance Matters: The Impact of TA in Supporting Communities Engaged in Cross-Sector, Place-Based Work
Author: Smith, Tara
Date: 2019-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Technical Assistance,Community Programs,Disadvantaged,Program Effectiveness,Federal Programs,Meetings,Group Activities,Coaching (Performance)

This report examines community feedback to shed light on the impact technical assistance (TA) has on place-based programs for people in disadvantaged communities. Focusing on how TA can shape practices, expand stakeholder knowledge, and enhance stakeholder networks, it offers guidelines for future TA investments.
Revealing the Comprehension Processes of Underprepared College Students: An Evaluation of the Reading Strategies Assessment Tool
Author: Magliano, Joseph P.
Date: 2020-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Reading Comprehension,Reading Strategies,Inferences,Reading Tests,Computer Assisted Testing,Natural Language Processing,Protocol Analysis,Scoring,College Freshmen,Bayesian Statistics,Scores,Developmental Studies Programs

Coherent mental models for successful comprehension require inferences that establish semantic &quot;bridges&quot; between discourse constituents and &quot;elaborations&quot; that incorporate relevant background knowledge. While it is established that individual differences in the extent to which postsecondary students engage in these processes are correlated with reading outcomes, there is little research exploring if first-year students and first-year students enrolled in developmental education (DE) differ in the extent that they engage in these processes. In this manuscript, authors report on the implementation of the Reading Strategy Assessment Tool (RSAT) with first-year students and first-year students enrolled in DE employing a think aloud protocol. RSAT is a computer-based system that collects typed &quot;think aloud&quot; protocols and analyses of the protocols for inference processes that support mental model construction. In this study, RSAT scoring was compared to human coding of the protocols. There was convergence between both approaches for scoring the protocols. Controlling for comprehension proficiency, both groups bridged to a comparable extent. There was evidence of less elaborative processes in the first-year students enrolled in DE, suggesting differences in relevant background knowledge across both groups. This study illustrates the utility of RSAT in the study of underprepared college students. [This paper will be published in &quot;Journal of College Literacy and Learning&quot; v46 May 2020.]