This edition is the 30th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from kindergarten through graduate school. The "Digest" includes a selection of data from many sources, and draws especially on the results of surveys and…

During the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), trained staff interviewed nearly 1,150 inmates in 80 federal and state prisons that had been randomly selected to represent prisons across the country. Survey participants completed diverse literacy tasks and answered questions regarding demographic characteristics, educational background, and…

Patterns of nonresponse, representing items not reached by test takers or omitted because of difficulty, were addressed for all three age groups (grade 4, grade 8, and grade 12) taking the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The analysis considered nonresponse rates for each item in the seven blocks of items on which reported…

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the School Safety and Discipline component of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93). Information about the purpose of the study, the data collection instruments, the sample design, and data collection and processing is presented. The…

This manual provides documentation and guidance for users of the public release data file for the School Readiness (SR) component of the 1993 National Household Education Survey (NHES:93). The NHES:93 was a random digit dial telephone survey of households developed by the National Center for Education Statistics and conducted by Westat Inc. For…

Project Adelante, established in 1988 at Kean College of New Jersey, is sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Higher Education, and is currently the only "College Bound" program targeting the Hispanic-American population. Adelante ("onward" in Spanish) aims to improve the high school graduation rate of Hispanic students and increase their…

Making the case that the human achievement of reading has few if any equals, this book uses protocol analysis data related to reading to develop a rich description and understanding of cognitive and affective processes during reading. The book concludes that reading is "constructively responsive"--that is, good readers are always changing their…

A study investigated the effectiveness of the Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL) program, an educator-developed approach to transactional strategies instruction (TSI). Five groups of six previously low-achieving second-grade students received a year of transactional strategies instruction and five groups of six students received a year…

This volume contains descriptions of programs for student success and retention at 68 state colleges and universities in the United States. Each institution is a participant in the National Retention Project, a research-based project working within broader campus cultures that are committed to providing access and success to students traditionally…

The Educational Testing Service is moving rapidly to computerize its tests for admissions to postsecondary education and occupational licensure/certification. Computerized tests offer important advantages, including immediate score reporting, the convenience of testing when the examinee wishes, and for adaptive tests, equal accuracy throughout the…

Drawing from a national survey of community colleges, this book documents trends in the employment and integration of part-time faculty in American community colleges. Chapter 1, "Focusing on the Problems: Part-Time Faculty in American Community Colleges," describes the economic, technological, and demographic imperatives generating the increased…

Significant steps have been taken by the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) project since its formation in 1970. The founders of MESA began a campaign, first in high schools, and later in middle and elementary schools, to convince educators, parents, and students of the importance of raising standards for the minority children…

Issues in alternative assessment for accountability purposes are discussed. Most new forms of performance assessment are linked in the literature, but all alternative forms of assessment do not have the same attributes in terms of technical and feasibility criteria. Tradeoffs in the validity of inferences that can be drawn from alternative…

This study attempted to control differences in achievement when examining omitting tendencies of examinees. Test data of randomly sampled examinees (7 samples of 2,000 examinees each) from one national administration of the ACT Assessment were used. The number of responses omitted per examinee was examined over all examinees and over only those…

The current status of education for 1994 is presented in the form of education "indicators"--key data that measure the health of education, monitor important developments, and show trends in major aspects of education. The 60 indicators have been divided into 6 areas: (1) access, participation, and progress; (2) achievement, attainment, and…