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CenterFocus is NCRVE's annual series of six brief syntheses of research and practice knowledge. Each issue is based on NCRVE research and other topics of great concern to the field. The syntheses are developed primarily for practitioners and policymakers.
Deliverables
The following is a list of possible issues to be synthesized in CenterFocus:
The editors are also currently identifying specific NCRVE research efforts that can be used as the basis for the briefs in the CenterFocus series. In total, six topics will be chosen.
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The Goals 2000: Educate America Act establishes a National Skill Standards Board to oversee the national program of industry skill standards. Over the last two years, NCRVE staff at both Teachers College, Columbia University and MPR Associates in Berkeley have carried out research on skill standards, and we have also launched a program of research on skill standards through four coordinated projects. In addition, work at Teachers College, RAND, and Berkeley during the last several years has been concerned with changing skill requirements on the job.
A two-day conference on skills and skill standards will be planned and will be held in May 1996. We have organized a conference to help the work of the National Skill Standards Board during its early stages by bringing to bear our accumulated experience and the experience of others with whom we have been working and interacting. The conference will be focused on integrating academic standards and industry skill standards. It will make suggestions about how these sets of standards could be more effectively integrated in the future. The audience will be people working on skill standards and academic standards, representatives from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education, and the National Skill Standards Board (invited).
Deliverables
Written material from the conference will include both the preconference materials and a postconference report similar to the Institute on Education and the Economy (Teachers College) report A Time for Questions: The Future of Integration and Tech Prep, published after the 1993 three-day summit on Tech Prep and integration.
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The purpose of the project this year is to market the practitioner materials developed last year. Getting to Work contains facilitator and practitioner materials focused on the role of the school in school-to-work with an emphasis on developing integrated curriculum. The content builds on NCRVE's collective knowledge of reforming schools through the integration of academic and vocational education. The target audience for these practitioner materials are lead teachers, principals, or administrators working with a group of teachers attempting to organize education around work.
This project will consist of four major tasks.
Task 1--National Conferences
The Getting to Work materials will be showcased in an exhibit booth at a variety of national conferences this year. In addition to working in the exhibitor's booth, Mikala Rahn will conduct training sessions using the materials at these conferences. National conferences targeted for exhibiting and training will include both familiar forums in which NCRVE is typically invited to participate and new conferences that include participants that we consider our target markets. NCRVE will participate in the conferences of the following organizations:
Task 2--Mailings
A mailing of the four-color brochure will be conducted in January 1996. This mailing list will include the Chief State School Officers, SREB sites, JFF's benchmark communities and state consortium members, NCRVE's Urban Schools Network, Superintendents of Great City Schools, education liaisons in the Governor's office, and other potential buyers or disseminators of the product information. The mailings will prompt phone inquiries that will need to be handled by MDS, the NCRVE dissemination team, and MPR Associates.
In addition, Mikala Rahn has been asked to write an article on Getting to Work for the Vocational Education Journal's May issue.
Task 3--National Orientation
National leaders in the area of school-to-work transition and school restructuring will be trained in the use of the product. This workshop will be conducted in Washington, DC, for all interested OVAE and National School-to-Work Office staff that may be providing technical assistance to local and state sites.
Task 4--State Conference
On May 6 and 7 in New Orleans, NCRVE will hold a workshop for state-level administrators interested in using Getting to Work to provide staff development opportunities for practitioners in their state. NCRVE's purpose for convening this workshop includes three objectives:
Deliverables
The project will produce marketing materials and an article for the Vocational Education Journal.
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NCRVE will continue to provide evaluation and technical assistance services to the Vocational Education Consortium of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which includes over 400 sites in 21 states. These sites represent the single largest group in the country actively pursuing a variety of strategies for improving vocational education such as curriculum integration, emphasizing high-level math and science instruction, changing teacher expectations, and stressing performance-based accountability.
MPR staff will (1) design an overall data collection strategy and survey instruments; (2) collect and analyze data reported by participating sites; and (3) prepare reports to sites, states, and the Consortium as a whole. Additionally, MPR Associates actively participates in the SREB Annual Summer Workshop, its fall and spring follow-up workshops, and periodic SREB board meetings.
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The purpose of the project is to develop and maintain a clearinghouse on accountability that monitors what states are doing with performance measures and standards and that shares this information with states and local education agencies. In addition to information on states' performance measures and standards, the clearinghouse will include information on related topics such as assessment, ways in which states are operationalizing AAI, and their experience with using various data sources such as transcripts or unemployment insurance data. As information on business and education skill standards develops, this information also will become part of the clearinghouse.
Further, the clearinghouse will maintain a mailing list of secondary and postsecondary contacts in each state and will periodically update local and state personnel on new information. Staff will also be provided to answer inquiries by phone or electronic mail.