ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
AED's HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Support Programs: International
Author: Academy for Educational Development
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS),Prevention,Nonprofit Organizations,Economic Opportunities,Educational Development,Social Change,Program Descriptions,Health Education

Founded in 1961, the Academy for Educational Development (AED) is a nonprofit organization working globally to improve health, education, and economic opportunity--the foundation of thriving societies. With a global staff of more than 2,000 focusing on the underserved, AED implements more than 250 programs serving people in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries. For more than 20 year, AED has worked globally on HIV/AIDS prevention and care. This paper offers an overview of AED's international HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs.
Research-Based Options for Education Policymaking: Common Core State Standards
Author: Mathis, William
Date: 2012-10-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: State Standards,Educational Policy,Policy Formation,Performance Factors,Best Practices,Program Implementation,Testing,Program Administration,Change Strategies,Educational Change

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have ardent supporters and strong critics. The actual effect of the CCSS, however, will depend much less on the standards themselves than on how they are used. Two factors are particularly crucial. The first is whether states invest in the necessary curricular and instructional resources and supports, and the second concerns the nature and use of CCSS assessments developed by the two national testing consortia. This paper offers key research points and advice for policymakers. (Contains 18 notes and references.)
Research-Based Options for Education Policymaking: Preschool Education
Author: Mathis, William
Date: 2012-11-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Preschool Education,Educational Change,Educational Policy,Policy Formation,Best Practices,Educational Quality,Preschool Evaluation,Performance Factors,Class Size,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Qualifications,Integrated Services,Family Needs,Child Care,Change Strategies

Publicly supported, high-quality preschool education is among the most successful and well-documented of education reforms. There is near-universal agreement that high-quality preschool programs more than pay for themselves in economic and social benefits. Program quality is absolutely critical. While no one factor can be considered determinative, some key program quality elements include: (1) Small class sizes and ratios--20 or fewer children, with two adults; (2) Well trained, adequately compensated and qualified teachers; (3) Strong links to social and health services; and (4) Attention to families' needs, including wrap-around child care. A number of other issues are frequently raised. Here's a summary of the key research: (1) Very Early Interventions; (2) Extended Day and Year; (3) Universal "versus" Targeted Enrollment; (4) Center-Based Programs; (5) Private "versus" Public Programs; (6) Head Start; and (7) Curriculum. This paper offers recommendations for policymakers. (Contains 20 notes and references.)
College Prep: A Timeline for Leaders
Author: Johnston, Howard
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: College Preparation,College Admission,Paying for College,Parent Participation,Instructional Leadership,Goal Orientation,Middle Schools,High Schools,Principals,Administrator Role,Parent Role,College Attendance,Interpersonal Relationship,Difficulty Level,Course Selection (Students)

Everyone acknowledges the importance of leadership in good schools, but sometimes a leader's influence extends into unexpected areas. Getting admitted to and succeeding in college is certainly the result of hard work on the part of individual students and their families, but for many kids, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds or from families without a strong commitment to higher education, the school plays a crucial role in helping them realize their educational goals. And the schools that are most successful in doing just that have strong leaders who create and sustain a culture of post-secondary education and provide the support necessary for students to develop the skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits of mind required for college success. This timeline, which is distilled from dozens of resources on preparing for college, getting admitted, and paying for college, lays out an agenda for leaders in middle and high schools. The timeline brings together the information principals need to work with students, parents and staff to make sure every child has a good shot at college admission and attendance. It also lays out an annual (and sometimes seasonal) timeline based on the normal cycles of application, admission, financial aid, and final decisions about schools and programs.
Changing Your School? First, Work on the Culture
Author: Ross, Craig
Date: 2010-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Educational Change,School Culture,Principals,Nontraditional Education,Expectation,Cooperation

Reforming their school has become just as much an expectation for school leaders as balancing the budget, managing the operations and improving student achievement. Reform initiatives are most often launched with excitement, passion, and a pledge of unwavering administrative support, yet they frequently are short-lived and drift unnoticed into the background and quietly disappear. The sad truth is that the parts of the initiative likely disappeared from the behaviors of teachers and administrators even earlier. As the principal of an alternative high school near Kalamazoo, MI the author recently worked with his teachers and community to implement a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program. As a result of this experience he learned much about the importance of understanding his school's culture and the underlying norms and values that shaped its practice. He also identified several important lessons for other principals working to implement change in their school. Implementing any school reform initiative is difficult. School leaders who understand not only the reform but also their school's culture are more likely to have a greater chance of success. When considering the fit between the reform initiative and the school's culture, it is important to address the necessity of &quot;unlearning&quot; old behaviors in order to replace them with new ones, and of &quot;undoing&quot; established expectations and time constraints that may not support the reform.
Assessment to Make "Dramatic Advance;" Coherency, Comprehensiveness Key
Author: Armistead, Lew
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: High Schools,Academic Achievement,Standards,Professional Development,College Readiness,Career Readiness

Assessment in America's high schools is about to undergo its most dramatic advance in decades, according to a policy brief released in February by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), a Washington, DC, based organization devoted to promoting high school transformation. "There is widespread concern that the most prominent assessments currently being used in the United States are inadequate and may have a significantly negative impact on student learning," wrote Robert Rothman, an AEE senior fellow, in the report, "Principles for a Comprehensive Assessment System." The brief calls for a new comprehensive-coherent assessment system in which curriculum, instruction and assessment are intertwined. This system should be organized around four principles, according to the brief: (1) Coherence; (2) Comprehensiveness; (3) Accuracy and Credibility; and (4) Fairness. The brief calls upon the federal government to take several steps to help ensure development of assessment systems that support student learning. [For "Principles for a Comprehensive Assessment System," see ED510797.]
Improving Adolescent Literacy Is Essential to National Welfare
Author: Armistead, Lew
Date: 2010-10-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Literacy,Principals,Educational Change,Expertise,Instructional Materials,Formative Evaluation,Educational Resources,Teacher Competencies,Educational Assessment,Instructional Leadership,Intervention,High School Students,High Schools,Secondary School Teachers

Calling students in high school now and in coming years "the people who will envision the future of our nation and chart our course through the 21st century and beyond," the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) has called in a new report for improvements in adolescent literacy if students are to succeed in college and careers. The report, "Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success," offers keys to reforming literacy instruction and cites schools where improvements are occurring. It was prepared by CCNY's Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, comprised of university scholars and reading experts. It also includes Mel Riddle, associate director for high school services, National Association of Secondary School Principals. Time to Act includes specific steps that school leaders, district personnel and state and federal policymakers should take to improve adolescent literacy. The report cites three "keys to successful reform": (1) Give teachers literacy focused instructional tools and formative assessments; (2) Encourage schools and districts to collect and use information about student literacy performance more efficiently; and (3) Call upon state-level leaders to maximize the use of limited resources for literacy efforts in a strategic way. The report concludes by indicating that educators and policymakers must use current knowledge in a targeted and systematic way.
Creating a Culture of College Attendance
Author: Williamson, Ronald
Date: 2010-11-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: College Attendance,Academic Aspiration,College Preparation,College Readiness,Middle School Students,High School Students,Educational Counseling,Metacognition,School Culture,Social Support Groups,Financial Support

College attendance is a generally accepted goal of most students and families. A study by the US Department of Education found that more than 80% of students indicate that they plan on obtaining a college degree (2002). Other studies found that these aspirations were consistent regardless of race, social class, and gender or achievement level. Many factors account for these aspirations: (1) Changes in the US economy from one based on industry to one focused on service, information and technology increased the importance of a college degree; (2) A significant earnings gap between high school graduates and those with a college degree continues to grow; (3) Societal norms have also grown to expect post-secondary training or college; and (4) Federal and state programs designed to encourage college attendance, provide financial support for students. While families want their children to attend college, not all families have the same capacity to successfully plan for college. High schools and their feeder middle schools have emerged as critical conduits of information for both students and families. The components of a comprehensive college readiness program are clear. ACT (2005) identified several practices that help prepare students for college. Others suggest that college readiness is more than selecting the right courses and identifying financial support. David Conley in a report prepared for the Gates Foundation suggests that a range of cognitive and metacognitive skills are perhaps more important than specific content knowledge. Such skills &quot;include analysis, interpretation, precision and accuracy, problem solving, and reasoning&quot; (Conley, 2007). And supportive and encouraging relationships with adults in both high school and middle school are critical. (Contains 8 online resources.)
HIV Prevention Capacity Building: A Framework for Strengthening and Sustaining HIV Prevention Programs
Author: Motamed, Cathy
Date: 2005-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Health Promotion,Health Services,Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS),Prevention,Sexually Transmitted Diseases,Public Health,Health Personnel,Models,Sustainability,At Risk Persons,Capacity Building,Social Differences,Social Isolation,Health Education,Guidelines

To combat the HIV epidemic, health service providers and public health professionals must use the best possible science and proven program models to reach and influence HIV-positive individuals and others at high risk of becoming infected. The large number and complexity of approaches that are necessary to institute and maintain HIV prevention programs make capacity-building for effective positive health outcomes essential. Capacity-building is a dynamic and informative process intended to improve the skills of individuals, organizations, and communities. It focuses on strengthening the knowledge and skill sets of both providers and recipients of health services. Capacity-building may also lead to the development of systems, such as communities or organizations, that are better able to address health problems, and in particular, problems that arise out of social inequity and social exclusion. This document explores the ways in which capacity-building can be applied to health promotion and disease prevention programs that focus on HIV by addressing the following questions: (1) What is HIV prevention capacity-building?; (2) Why build capacity?; (3) What is distinctive about capacity-building?; (4) Why invest in capacity-building?; (5) Will building capacity make a difference?; and (6) How does capacity-building affect sustainability? Appended are: (1) Annotated Bibliography; (2) Glossary; and (3) Acronyms. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures and 9 footnotes.)
AED's HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Support Programs: Domestic
Author: Academy for Educational Development
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS),Prevention,Sexually Transmitted Diseases,Nonprofit Organizations,Economic Opportunities,Educational Development,Social Change,Program Descriptions

Founded in 1961, the Academy for Educational Development (AED) is a nonprofit organization working globally to improve health, education, and economic opportunity--the foundation of thriving societies. With a global staff of more than 2,000 focusing on the underserved, AED implements more than 250 programs serving people in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries. For more than 20 years, AED has worked globally on HIV/AIDS prevention and care. This paper presents an overview of AED's domestic HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs.
Cheat Sheet or Open-Book? A Comparison of the Effects of Exam Types on Performance, Retention, and Anxiety
Author: Gharib, Afshin
Date: 2012-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Introductory Courses,Psychology,Statistics,College Instruction,Tests,Test Anxiety,Test Format,Cheating,Documentation,Comparative Analysis,Academic Achievement

The differences between open-book, cheat sheet, and closed-book exams were examined in two different types of psychology courses. A total of 297 students enrolled in eight sections of Introductory Psychology and 99 students enrolled in four sections of Statistics participated in this study. Exam types were counterbalanced across sections of the same course. Students were given either open-book, cheat sheet, or closed-book exams, took a surprise quiz two weeks after the exams to measure retention of course material, completed a preference questionnaire, and took a pre-test measure of test anxiety on open-book and cheat sheet tests. While students did slightly better on open-book exam than on closed-book exams, they also much preferred open-book and cheat sheet exams over closed-book exams, and had lower levels of anxiety when taking open-book exams compared to cheat sheet exams. Based on these results, open-book exams may be a superior style of examination for a variety of psychology courses. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.) [This research was supported in part by an Academic Excellence Grant from Dominican University of California.]
Becoming a Gang Member: Youth Life and Gang Youth
Author: Morch, Sven
Date: 2012-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Social Responsibility,Juvenile Gangs,Guidelines,Interpersonal Relationship,Youth,Social Integration,Foreign Countries

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding the growth in youth gangs and gang behaviour. The paper builds on a youth theory perspective and describes how the social conditions work with or are against the young individual in such a way that gangs seem to be an option or an answer for some young people when faced with today's youth life situation. In this study, it focuses on the development of social vs. societal gangs, and on the late modern challenges of individualised social responsibility and the use of social relations in managing individualisation problems. (Contains 1 footnote.)
How Stable Are Value-Added Estimates across Years, Subjects and Student Groups? What We Know Series: Value-Added Methods and Applications. Knowledge Brief 3
Author: Loeb, Susanna
Date: 2012-10-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Teacher Effectiveness,Scores,Peer Influence,Educational Testing,Teacher Evaluation,Outcomes of Education,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Error of Measurement,Time Perspective

Value-added models measure teacher performance by the test score gains of their students, adjusted for a variety of factors such as the performance of students when they enter the class. The measures are based on desired student outcomes such as math and reading scores, but they have a number of potential drawbacks. One of them is the inconsistency in estimates for the same teacher when value added is measured in a different year, or for different subjects, or for different groups of students. Some of the differences in value added from year to year result from true differences in a teacher's performance. Differences can also arise from classroom peer effects; the students themselves contribute to the quality of classroom life, and this contribution changes from year to year. Other differences come from the tests on which the value-added measures are based; because test scores are not perfectly accurate measures of student knowledge, it follows that they are not perfectly accurate gauges of teacher performance. In this brief, the authors describe how value-added measures for individual teachers vary across time, subject, and student populations. They discuss how additional research could help educators use these measures more effectively, and they pose new questions, the answers to which depend not on empirical investigation but on human judgment. Finally, they consider how the current body of knowledge, and the gaps in that knowledge, can guide decisions about how to use value-added measures in evaluations of teacher effectiveness. (Contains 3 tables and 17 endnotes.)
Do Different Value-Added Models Tell Us the Same Things? What We Know Series: Value-Added Methods and Applications. Knowledge Brief 4
Author: Goldhaber, Dan
Date: 2012-10-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Evidence,Teacher Evaluation,Educational Testing,Scores,Teacher Effectiveness,Achievement Gains,Background,Models,Correlation,School Districts,Decision Making,Measures (Individuals)

There are good reasons for re-thinking teacher evaluation. Evaluation systems in most school districts appear to be far from rigorous. A recent study showed that more than 99 percent of teachers in a number of districts were rated &quot;satisfactory,&quot; which does not comport with empirical evidence that teachers differ substantially from each other in terms of their effectiveness. Likewise, the ratings do not reflect the assessment of the teacher workforce by administrators, other teachers, or students. Evaluation systems that fail to recognize the true differences that are known to exist among teachers greatly hamper the ability of school leaders and policymakers to make informed decisions about such matters as which teachers to hire, what teachers to help, which teachers to promote, and which teachers to dismiss. Thus it is encouraging that policymakers are developing more rigorous evaluation systems, many of which are partly based on student test scores. Yet while the idea of using student test scores for teacher evaluations may be conceptually appealing, there is no universally accepted methodology for translating student growth into a measure of teacher performance. In this brief, the authors review what is known about how measures that use student growth align with one another, and what that agreement or disagreement might mean for policy. (Contains 3 tables and 44 endnotes.)
How Do Value-Added Indicators Compare to Other Measures of Teacher Effectiveness? What We Know Series: Value-Added Methods and Applications. Knowledge Brief 5
Author: Harris, Douglas N.
Date: 2012-10-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Effectiveness,Evidence,Teaching Methods,Teacher Evaluation,Measures (Individuals),Accountability,Observation,Student Surveys,Academic Achievement,Interpersonal Competence,Validity,Reliability,Correlation,Formative Evaluation,School Districts,Decision Making

In the recent drive to revamp teacher evaluation and accountability, measures of a teacher's value added have played the starring role. But the star of the show is not always the best actor, nor can the star succeed without a strong supporting cast. In assessing teacher performance, observations of classroom practice, portfolios of teachers' work, student learning objectives, and surveys of students are all possible additions to the mix. All these measures vary in what aspect of teacher performance they measure. While teaching is broadly intended to help students live fulfilling lives, educators must be more specific about the elements of performance that contribute to that goal--differentiating contributions to academic skills, for instance, from those that develop social skills. Once educators have established what aspect of teaching they intend to capture, the measures differ in how valid and reliable they are in capturing that aspect. Although there are big holes in what they know about how evaluation measures stack up on these two criteria, they can draw some important conclusions from the evidence collected so far. In this brief, the author will show how existing research can help district and state leaders who are thinking about using multiple measures of teacher performance to guide them in hiring, development, and retention. (Contains 30 endnotes.)