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A number of national and international organizations have compiled lists of grand challenges to unify the efforts of scholars and practitioners in a field. Unified efforts increase the possibility of creating meaningful and lasting progress. In this paper we share ten grand challenges that were identified through an examination of the assessment literature and a national survey. Each of the grand challenges are described. The four challenges which were identified as being of greatest concern to the assessment community are currently being addressed by the Grand Challenges in Assessment Project for possible collective solutions.

Even in good times, when business is booming and employee engagement is high, executive leaders and senior-level managers face a high level of pressure. Not only are they charged with setting the direction for their organizations, but they must also foster alignment and commitment with their teams so the organization moves forward successfully. But in times of rapid change or disruption to existing business models, the responsibilities of a leader become all the more challenging. It's through these volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous times that inspiring leaders are needed more than ever. Our research suggests that a behavior-based approach to coaching helps leaders find opportunity in the face of great challenge, and integrate key skills into their daily interactions. In turn, executive coaching has a ripple effect, positively impacting the entire organization. This white paper explores why, even in challenging business environments, executive coaching remains important. It explains the benefits of coaching during times of disruption, both for leaders and their teams. And it looks at the reasons why businesses prioritize coaching and rely on it as a tool to carry their organizations into the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused tremendous upheaval in schooling. In addition to its devasting effects on students' academic development, the disruptions to schooling had important consequences for researchers conducting effectiveness studies on educational programs during this era. Given the likelihood of future large-scale disruptions, it is important for researchers to plan resilient studies and think critically about possible adaptations when such turbulence arises. In this article, we utilize qualitative case study analysis to examine how researchers evaluating educational programs in the pandemic period adjusted to turbulent conditions through design pivots to ensure the feasibility of research. We find that researchers struggled to strike a balance between the evaluations that were intended and those that could realistically be accomplished. We identify how the challenges of the pandemic period and design pivots raised potential threats to validity, illuminate some promising practices that arose during the pandemic period, and provide recommendations for future research and evaluation programs focused on studying the effectiveness of educational programs during times of profound disruption.

In many school districts the policies that regulate personnel are governed by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) negotiated between teachers' unions and school boards. While there is significant policy attention and, in some cases, legislative action that has affected the scope of these agreements, there is relatively little research that assesses how CBAs vary over time, or whether they change in response to states' legislative reforms. In this paper we compare CBAs in three states at two points in time: before and after substantial reforms in Michigan and Washington impacting collective bargaining and in California where there were no major statutory changes affecting CBAs. We find that few district characteristics predict changes in CBA restrictiveness over time, other than institutional spillovers from local bargaining structures. However, we observe that reforms to the scope of bargaining in Michigan and Washington drastically reduced the restrictiveness of Michigan and Washington CBAs relative to California.

The 2018 election cycle resulted in new governors in 20 states and two territories. This change will have further ripple effects as new governors in many states appoint new chief state school officers, state board of education members, and other state education leaders. If properly understood and leveraged, each new governor's transition period provides a critical window of opportunity to promote education equity, opportunity, and outcomes. This brief produced by the National Governors Association (NGA) and EducationCounsel provides guidance to new governors and state education teams on how to think about this critical transition period, how to best advance education priorities, and how partners can provide support. Based on lessons learned from prior gubernatorial, state, and national education transitions, NGA and EducationCounsel have identified ten opportunities for action that each governor and others should consider - from election to inauguration and in the first 100 days - to get the most out of the state transition period in terms of advancing education equity, quality, and outcomes. By investing the time, energy, and resources necessary to attend to these opportunities, the transition team and those seeking to support it will be on solid footing to do the difficult but essential work of pursuing an equitable and rigorous education for every student.

The increasing availability of massive administrative datasets linking postsecondary enrollees with post-college earnings records has stimulated a wealth of new research on the returns to college, and has accelerated state and federal efforts to hold institutions accountable for students' labor market outcomes. Many of these new research and policy efforts rely on state databases limited to postsecondary enrollees who work in the same state post-college, with limited information regarding family background and pre-college ability. In this paper, we use recent waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to provide new, nationally representative, non-experimental estimates of the returns to degrees, as well as to assess the possible limitations of single-state, administrative-data-based estimates. To do this we evaluate how the national estimates change, depending upon the baseline comparison group, adjustments for pre-college achievement and family background, and alternative ways of addressing interstate mobility. We conclude with a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of survey versus administrative data for estimating returns to college, as well as implications for research and policy efforts based upon single-state administrative databases. [For "Estimating Returns to College Attainment: Comparing Survey and State Administrative Data Based Estimates: Appendices A, B, C, D, and E," see ED573077.]

This ETF Issues Paper on the Future of Work and Skills is the first attempt to collect and analyse existing information and data on the skills demands of the future in ETF partner countries, and to explore responses for better managing the transition (transformation) towards an inclusive future for the benefit of individuals and societies. Thus, the paper analyses the impact of global developments on skills demands in ETF partner countries in order to support their discussions on the policy reforms required for managing the transition to the future. Rather than making a detailed analysis of each individual country, the paper reviews the general trends across the four regions of the ETF's partner countries: South Eastern Europe and Turkey (SEET), Eastern Partnership (EaP), Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) and Central Asia.

Previous research suggests that there are academic benefits when students and teachers share the same race/ethnicity because such teachers can serve as role models, mentors, advocates, or cultural translators. In this paper, we obtain estimates of achievement changes as students are assigned to teachers of different races/ethnicities from grades 3 through 10 utilizing a large administrative dataset provided by the Florida Department of Education that follows the universe of test-taking students in Florida public schools from 2001-02 through 2008-09. We find small but significant positive effects when black and white students are assigned to race-congruent teachers in reading (0.004 to 0.005 standard deviations) and for black, white and Asian/Pacific Island students in math (0.007 to 0.041 standard deviations). We also examine the effects of race matching by students' prior performance level, finding that lower-performing black and white students appear to particularly benefit from being assigned to a race-congruent teacher. An appendix provides a test of the authors' hypothesis and supplemental tables.

Unemployment Insurance (UI) is the major social insurance program that protects against lost earnings resulting from involuntary unemployment. Existing literature finds that low-earning unemployed workers experience difficulty accessing UI benefits. The most prominent policy reform designed to increase rates of monetary eligibility, and thus UI receipt, among these unemployed workers is the Alternative Base Period (ABP). In 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sought to increase use of the ABP, making ABP adoption a necessary pre-condition for states to receive their share of the $7 billion targeted at UI programs. By June 2012, 40 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the ABP despite the absence of an evaluation of ABP efficacy using nationally representative data. This paper analyzes Current Population Survey data from 1987-2007 to assess the efficacy of the ABP in increasing UI receipt among low-educated unemployed workers. We use a natural-experiment design and logistic regression models to capture the combined behavioral and mechanical effects of the policy change. We find no association between state-level ABP adoption and individual UI receipt for all unemployed workers. However, among part-time unemployed workers with less than a high-school degree, adoption of the ABP is associated with a 3.4 percentage point increase in the probability of UI receipt. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure and 7 footnotes.)

Today, information and data on skills development come mainly from household and employees surveys: trends in the labour market, demand and supply of skills, data on skill mismatch and skills obsolescence. Recurrent analysis of individual cross-sectional data and their extrapolation into the future indicates significant structural changes over time. Despite the critical nature of such structural data, they do not allow one to understand fully the complexity of changing skill requirements and developments in occupations at the workplace. Therefore, Cedefop, with financial support from the European Commission has taken a step forward by developing a European employer survey on skill needs. Cedefop worked, in close cooperation with experts, to develop and evaluate innovative approaches for measuring skill needs from the employers' point of view. The pilot survey focuses on testing questions on the importance of generic skill requirements and specific working tasks, as well as relevant changes in defined occupations. It also collected information on drivers of change, such as innovation, and their impact on skill requirements at the workplace to broaden the perspective on future needs. The survey also piloted questions on staff preparedness to meet new requirements, and firms' policies to address this issue. This publication describes in brief the measurement concept and the survey methodology tested in the pilot survey to identify current and future skill needs as perceived by employers in Europe. It provides illustrative findings with some implications to be followed up in future work, as well as an assessment of the approach's practicability and options for moving to a large-scale employer survey on skill needs in Europe. A tabular annex provides the share of employment covered by the survey. [The publication is a result of development work under a contract between Cedefop and TNS Infratest Socialfoschung.]

With teacher quality repeatedly cited as the most important "schooling" factor influencing student achievement, there has been increased interest in examining the efficacy of teacher training programs. This paper presents research examining the variation between and impact that individual teacher training institutions in Washington state have on the effectiveness of teachers they train. Using administrative data linking teachers' initial endorsements to student achievement on state reading and math tests, we find the majority of teacher training programs produce teachers who are no more or less effective than teachers who trained out-of-state. However, we do find a number of cases where there are statistically significant differences between estimates of training program effects for teachers who were credentialed at various in-state programs. These findings are robust to a variety of different model specifications. Appended are: (1) Mean Teacher Characteristics of Teachers from Different Training Institutions; (2) Mean Student Characteristics of Teachers from Different Training Institutions; (3) Student-to-Teacher Matching by Subject, Grade and Year; and (4) Number of Teachers with WEST-B Scores by Initial Certificate Granting Program. (Contains 10 tables, 2 figures and 71 footnotes.)

Children face many important changes in the first eight years of life, including different learning centres, social groups, roles and expectations. Their ability to adapt to such a dynamic and evolving environment directly affects their sense of identity and status within their community over the short and long term. In particular, the key turning points in children's lives--such as "graduating" from kindergarten to primary school or going through a culturally specific rite of passage--provide challenges and opportunities for learning and growth on multiple levels. This paper provides a review of the major perspectives in research on early childhood transitions and reveals the predominant areas of focus in both academic and professional studies, as well as important neglected viewpoints and study populations. Beginning with a broad and inclusive definition of the topic, the authors provide an overview of early childhood transitions research, highlighting the underlying assumptions that informed the studies. They assess concepts in the developmental theory that preceded transitions research as well as in the logic that determines how transitions are structured. More recent approaches are examined, including systems theories and the role of children as active participants in transitions. Several examples in this review show how multidisciplinary collaboration and culturally sensitive interventions can result in better participation of both parents and children in crucial early childhood transitions. Citing the need to harmonise early childhood education and care programmes with local education practices, the authors stress the value of greater transparency in the creation of policy and programming for children, in order to identify potentially limiting assumptions. Broadening and diversifying perspectives on transitions can lead to more integrated and culturally relevant rights-based early childhood programmes worldwide. A glossary and a bibliography are included. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

This report describes a conversion experiment and subsequent reader survey conducted by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book (HEB) in late 2009 and early 2010 to assess the viability of using scholarly monographs with handheld e-readers. As sample content, HEB selected six titles from its own online collection, three in a page-image format with existing OCR (optical character recognition)-derived text and three encoded as XML files, and had these converted by an outside vendor with minimal editorial intervention into both MOBI (prc) and ePub files. During its in-house assessment phase, HEB experienced some navigational difficulty with both formats and found that annotation and other interaction with the text was difficult using a number of popular e-readers. HEB also found the XML titles to be of limited functionality in the MOBI format and therefore opted not to further poll readers on this subset. About 88% of the 142 survey participants expressed overall satisfaction with the appearance and functionality of the three remaining handheld samples, although roughly half reported some level of frustration with the search function using either format, and only 26% felt they would have an easy time citing and referencing these editions. Satisfaction with other interactive features, such as adding notes, bookmarking and highlighting, was noticeably higher; however, the "n/a" option was also selected frequently for these categories, and it appears that a large number of participants were unable to perform the tasks in question due to confusing or insufficient instructions from the device manufacturer. As formats evolve, future satisfaction with these features may increase. Irrespective of specific limitations, 75% of participants were interested in potentially downloading additional similar titles for free or if priced below $10. HEB's initial findings in this study indicate that titles formatted for existing handheld devices are not yet adequate for scholarly use in terms of replicating either the benefits of online collections--cross-searchability, archiving, multifarious interactive components--nor certain aspects of print editions that users reported missing, such as being able to mark up and rapidly skim text. A turnaround is underway once a common and more robust format optimized for handheld readers is determined and devices themselves evolve, adding improved display options and better and more intuitive web-access, searching and other interactive use of content. Survey Results is appended. (Contains 30 footnotes.)

This paper outlines the main changes that have effected a transformation in the nature of academic work: on the one hand, the increasing diversification and specialisation of academic tasks, and on the other, new forms of control over academic work. An analysis of these trends leads to a discussion of the relationships between the evolution of academic work and non-academic work. (Contains 7 notes.)

This issues paper, seventh in a series of eight, is intended to distill formative evaluation questions on topics that are central to the development of the higher and further education information environment in the United Kingdom. The aim of this issues paper is to provide a description of the approach of the Formative Evaluation of the Distributed National Electronic Resource (EDNER) Project to understanding implicit theories of change to allow project teams (learning resource development teams) to carry out their own exercises in "surfacing" the assumptions embedded in their own work. Revealing such assumptions results in airing differences, improving consensus, and enhancing the internal logic of the project. Surfacing the theory of change in a project begins with each team member writing down a vision of the "outcome of interest," and the circulation of these documents to all team members. A logic map is then produced of the project's theory of change, and the directed links between inputs and goals and outputs are explains. The work of explaining these links is what brings the project's implicit theory of change to the surface. The map is revised as necessary to keep the reflection of the project current. (SLD)

In most post-communist countries, the beginning of the 1990s witnessed creation and growth of private higher education institutions on the one hand and privatization of public educational services on the other. The Georgian developments mostly fit this general pattern, but, in many respects, it is an extreme case. First of all, both private and public sectors in higher education saw striking fluctuations in their growth patterns. Besides, these powerful developments took place against a fairly unchanged regulatory background. For these reasons, examination of the Georgian trends allows better appreciation of the relationship that exists between private and public sectors in higher education, as well as further generalizations. It is argued here that in Georgia, in face of a lax regulatory regime, increased market competition has served as one of the main factors for shaping private-public sector dynamics. That is, rapid private higher education proliferation in the beginning of the 1990s had greatly contributed to the fall in the public sector's enrollment share, while rigorous public sector privatization later took its toll on the private sector's share of enrolment. Examination of institutional types also reveals significant interrelationships between the nature of the courses offered by the two sectors in higher education. (Contains 3 tables, 1 graph, and 15 notes.)

Random assignment experiments are widely used in the United States to test the effectiveness of new social interventions. This paper discusses several major welfare-to-work experiments, highlighting their evaluation from simple "black box" tests of single interventions to multi-group designs used to compare alternative interventions or to isolate the effects of components of an intervention. The paper also discusses new efforts to combine experimental and nonexperimental analyses in order to test underlying program theories and maximize the knowledge gained about the effectiveness of social programs. Researchers and policymakers in Britain may find this variety of approaches useful to consider as they debate an expanded role for social experiments. (Contains 46 references.) (Author/SLD)

This paper addresses how to measure the performance of programs by measuring the outcomes of program participation for learners. Based on studies conducted in Tennessee in which adult learners reported a broader and more complex set of outcomes than the three "core indicators" mandated by Title II of the 1998 Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the paper suggests that learners have a different perspective on performance than the authors of WIA and their perspectives should be considered at the policy level and by local programs. Section 1 examines performance accountability in adult basic education and how it is being applied in the WIA, the National Reporting System, and 17 state plans. Section 2 reports on findings of the Tennessee Longitudinal Study of Adult Literacy and a subsequent qualitative study. The following findings of the Tennessee study of adult literacy learners are reported: (1) there is an increase in rate of employment; (2) increase in overall satisfaction with their financial situation; (3) overall increase in self esteem; (4) increase in involvement in community organizations; (5) positive change in three of eight literacy practices; and (6) increase in the number of people who thought a book was a good gift for a child. Findings from the Learner Identified Outcomes Study show that participants identified changes in their lives that can be grouped as literacy uses and changes in sense of self. Section 3 discusses implications of findings and alternative ways to assess the performance of adult basic education. (Contains 17 references.) (YLB)

These narrative accounts follow a group of young adults searching for meaning during the ten years after their college graduation, and offer insights into how higher education might create conditions for this search to occur during college. This longitudinal study is based on interviews with 39 participants at various points during their undergraduate, graduate, and/or early working years for a 13-year period beginning in 1986 when they entered college. All participants were traditional-age students attending state institutions with a liberal arts focus. The primary focus of the college phase of the study was on epistemology, or students' assumptions about the limits, certainty, and criteria for knowing. Phase 2 of the research explored development after college. Sections of the paper examine the implications for educational practice of holistic education and the developmental dimensions of the search for meaning. Interview data inform discussions of complexities encountered in the search for meaning; realization of the need to search for meaning; construction of internal authority and meaning; and solidifying internal meaning-making. Interview responses were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. A final section discusses the creation of educational contexts for internal meaning-making. (Contains 21 references.) (CH)

Data from the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) in 13 states for 1997 and 1999 was used to study how welfare reform policies, mandated by the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, affected employment of single mothers with children. The states were Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. The study found that, in general, there were increases in employment consistent with national data that show steadily increasing employment for single women with children over this time period. For high school graduates, an increase of about 5 percent in currently employed single mothers with children and an increase of about 7 percent in weeks worked last year among single mothers in the group of states was recorded. Contrary to expectations, the study also found that individual state welfare-reform policies did not have a differential effect on increases of single mothers previously on welfare finding and keeping employment. The increases were about the same in all 13 states, when accounting for general economic trends. (Contains 13 references.) (KC)

This investigation examined the history and durability of educational innovation at six colleges and universities (Pitzer College (California); New College of the University of South Florida; Hampshire College (Massachusetts); University of Wisconsin-Green Bay; University of California Santa Cruz; and The Evergreen State College (Washington) that were founded in the 1960s and 1970s as alternatives to mainstream American higher education. Innovation is defined as including interdisciplinary teaching and learning, student-centered education, egalitarianism, and experiential learning, with an institutional focus on teaching. The study's objective was to understand how innovative campuses preserve their founding missions in a changing social, political, and economic climate. During 4- to 6-day field visits during the 1995-96 academic year, 151 interviews were conducted with 164 faculty members, administrators, students, graduates, and trustees. Based on the findings, the following strategies are recommended to help ensure innovation in distinctive institutions of higher education: retain a significant number of founding faculty members until their retirements; recruit new faculty and administrators who are committed to innovation; establish reward systems that value innovation; provide open and flexible organizational structures; affiliate with a consortium or other institutions; recruit faculty with experience at other innovative campuses; and keep the student-to-faculty ratios small. (Contains 68 references.) (SW)

This report surveys the various applications of information technology to research in the humanities and examines challenges that need to be overcome. The document is divided into five sections. The first section provides a background on changes brought on by technology in the humanities. The second section focuses on information technology and scholarship. Topics include: electronic communication; text; data; images; sound; combined sources/multimedia/World Wide Web; retroconversion projects; original and creative works; electronic publication; and tools. A summary of computer applications in humanities research and future outlook are included at the end of this section. New developments and change are discusses in the third section. The fourth section outlines institutional changes that are necessary to enable effective technology use in humanities scholarship. Topics include: training and support; project management; research infrastructure; digital libraries and archives; information resources; regulatory issues; preservation and access; funding; and humanities support services. The fifth section makes recommendations and lists priorities for humanists, technical experts, librarians, and administrators. Appendices in the final section include acknowledgments, bibliographies, and abbreviations and acronyms. (Contains 37 references.) (AEF)

This paper examines health workforce and migration policies in New Zealand, with a special focus on the international recruitment of doctors and nurses. The health workforce in New Zealand, as in all OECD countries, plays a central role in the health system. Nonetheless, maybe more than for any other OECD country, the health workforce in New Zealand cannot be considered without taking into account its international dimension. New Zealand has the highest proportion of migrant doctors among OECD countries, and one of the highest for nurses. There is no specific immigration policy for health professionals, although the permanent and temporary routes make it relatively easy for doctors and nurses who can get their qualification recognised to immigrate in New Zealand. At the same time, New Zealand also has high emigration rates of health workers, mainly to other OECD countries. International migration is thus at the same time an opportunity and a challenge for the management of the human resources for health (HRH) in New Zealand. Increasing international competition for highly skilled workers raises important issues such as sustainability and ability to compete in a global market. In this context, new approaches to improve the international recruitment of health workers, as well as developing alternative policies, may need to be considered. As for international recruitment, better coordination and stronger collaboration between main stakeholders could contribute to more effective and pertinent international recruitment. (A bibliography is included. Contains 23 footnotes, 18 charts, 1 map, 7 boxes, and 2 tables.) [Financial support for the project was provided by Australia, Canada, and the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection of the European Commission.]

Occasional Papers deal with varied aspects of librarianship and consist of papers that generally are too long or too detailed for publication in a periodical, or are of specialized or contemporary interest. This latest volume in the Occasional Paper series reviews the changing and cumulative institutional functions of libraries in Western civilization, tracing "The Seven Ages of Librarianship" from the working archives created by emerging civilizations through contemporary libraries that serve as instruments for social change. The metaphors of "lux" (light) and "latebra" (refuge) are used to characterize how the library serves today's communities. (AEF)

Profound changes are occurring in technology, work, and work organization with equally profound implications for the future role of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia. The changes have the following six interrelated elements that tend to affect one another. (1) globalization is creating a more internationalized economy and culture; (2) international competition is driving an accelerated rate of technological change in information and communications; (3) technology is associated with a sharp drop in skilled blue-collar work, a sharp rise in skilled and semi-skilled white-collar work, and no increase in jobs overall; (4) organizational change is immense but uneven, in that the post-Fordist vision of flatter structures, loose networks, and stimulating work is not occurring, although workplaces based on high participation, strong teams, and integrated, multiskilled jobs make productivity gains; (5) non-standard work and flexible hours have sharply increased; and (6) there is a growing polarization in income, in access to work and work security, and to technologies. The key elements in the future role of VET are its capacity to integrate more closely with the workplace and to integrate into the innovation cycle; on-the-job training is the aspect that has been underestimated so far. (An appendix contains 91 references. An 86-item annotated bibliography is attached, with a list of 213 other materials included in the study.) (YLB)

This paper, the introductory chapter to a forthcoming book ("Financing Recurrent Education"), discusses the political and economic dimensions of life-long learning (recurrent education) and suggests methods by which a recurrent education system might be constructed and financed. The decline in youthful labor force entrants and forecasted changes in technology and the labor force are producing a need for a system that provides opportunities for education and training throughout the life cycle of workers. The author presents nine different motives for advocating the expansion of recurrent education and points out that this very diversity of approaches and motives may be the greatest political obstacle to its adoption and implementation. A bibliography is included. (MD/MLF)