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Noting that locating suitable space can be a challenge when starting a new early childhood program or relocating an established program in New York City, this resource paper focuses on physical sites for early education and child care programs and services. Presented in three parts, the paper includes tips for assessing the feasibility of a potential site, estimating the cost, finding the funding to develop the site, and working with an architect. Part 1 identifies six ways to locate potential sites in the community. Part 2 provides suggestions for assessing the suitability of a site for a child care program, considering both licensing requirements and program needs. This part includes tips with regard to amount of instructional space, location in building, other space, playground, rent, and potential space problems. Part 3 focuses on finding and working effectively with a qualified architect. This part includes questions to ask the architect, a list of architectural services, a glossary of architectural terms, and addresses for further information. (KB)

This booklet is one architectural firm's presentation of understanding and applying the latest educational research in real-world settings. It asserts that achitects can make significant contributions to education by designing schools that uniquely facilitate improvements in organizational structure, learning methods, or both. It presents lessons learned about designing schools and about the process and the planning that are required to align facilities with programs, and architecture with education. The booklet provides examples of environments shaped by attention to communities' individual needs, including small schools, project-based learning, and community schools. Following an introduction, the discussion is broken into the following chapters: (1) "Schools That Fit"; (2)"Toward Better Schools"; (3) "Schools That Fit Communities"; (4) "Schools That Fit Education Leaders"; (5) "Schools That Fit Teachers"; (6) "Schools That Fit Learners"; and (7) "Schools That Fit Children." (Contains a list of 16 resources.) (EV)

This paper draws on the experience of the Sebastopol Union School District, a small school district in California, which formed a team to manage facilities renovation. The team was comprised of the district superintendent, the architect, a construction manager, and a facility/financial consultant; it allowed the district to succeed at the school construction "game" in a manner similar to large school districts that enjoy well-developed facility departments. The paper outlines the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team in the following identified phases of facility development: master planning/educational specifications, funding and finances, design, pre- construction, construction, and post-construction. It illustrates the manner in which the several consultants coordinated their roles and responsibilities in an effort to ensure the most effective leadership for successful completion of projects that support the facility master plan. (EV)

As the automated scoring of constructed responses reaches operational status, the issue of monitoring the scoring process becomes a primary concern, particularly when the goal is to have automated scoring operate completely unassisted by humans. Using a vignette from the Architectural Registration Examination and data for 326 cases with both human and computer scores available, this study reports on the usefulness of an approach based on classification trees (L. Breiman, J. Friedman, R. Olshen, and C. Stone, 1984) as a means of quality control. Five studies were carried out analyzing different aspects of the "training set" and making efforts to cross-validate the results of the analysis by applying the resulting classification trees to data that had not been used in the development of the tree. The application of classification trees led to valuable insights with implications for operational quality control processes. Furthermore, classification tree methods were shown to be able to select cases for future quality control processes accurately and efficiently, thereby suggesting that future quality control selection procedures may be completely automated. However, further analyses are needed to establish whether classification trees can be relied on to identify cases that are the most likely to require some adjustment without incurring the potentially costly error of ignoring solutions that are likely to require adjustment. (Contains 10 tables, 7 figures, and 13 references.) (Author/SLD)

In Spring 1997, Maui Community College (MCC), in Hawaii, conducted a survey of Maui businesses to determine perceived needs for a certificate or associate degree program in sustainable technologies. Questionnaires were mailed to 500 businesses, including building, electrical, and plumbing contractors, architects, waste disposal, power generators, agricultural concerns, automotive repairers, and hotels. They sought information on the anticipated level and configuration of job openings within the next 5 years; types of inservice training, wages, and class scheduling accessibility. Study findings, based on 54 completed questionnaires, included the following: (1) the projected need for hiring new employees with sustainable technologies skills is about 22.8 per year over the next 5 years (totaling 114 hires); (2) three sectors, electrical contractors, plumbing, and hotels, will generate most of the jobs; (3) the starting wage for sustainable technologies hires was considerably above minimum wage, at least $8 per hour, with half of the companies promising $15 or more per hour; (4) inservice demand was high; (5) the best time for classes is evenings. The study concluded that there is a need for a sustainable technologies program with a capacity for training 16-20 students per year. The cover letter, survey instrument, and employer comments are attached. (ECF)

This document, which is based on data gathered during a September 1994 mail survey of 215,284 South African graduates that elicited a total response rate of 18.3%, details the remuneration of graduates (as of July 1, 1994) in a wide range of engineering and architecture-related occupations in the public and private sectors and in self-employment. Presented first are brief descriptions of the survey group, survey questionnaire, procedures used to analyze/present the data, and nature/scope of data reported under the following categories: salary, fringe benefits, package, percentile value, occupation, employer sector, geographical distribution, post level, age/years of work experience, employment status/working hours, and economic sector. The nine tables constituting the remainder of the document present data on the following: median income of graduates working full time according to employer sector/occupation (overall and by gender), occupation/region/employer sector; occupation/post level/employer sector; occupation/work experience/employer sector; and occupation/working hours/employer sector; median income of full-time employees and self-employed persons according to occupation/economic sector; comparison of the income of men and women working full time according to occupation/work experience; and median income of graduates working full time according to occupation/work experience/population group/employer sector and field and level of study and employer sector. Included in the document are English and Afrikaans versions of the study report. (MN)

This mix of presentation graphis, forms, and text presents guidelines for developing a school-district policy for selecting consultants to design and carry out school-building projects. The specific policy presented is that of the Bellevue (Washington) School District. The manual describes how to: (1) develop a written consultant-selection policy; (2) conduct architectural interviews; (3) develop formal written guidelines and policies; (4) conduct consultant notification and fee negotiations; (5) maximize community and staff involvement; (6) create a successful match between consultants and the school-building project; and (7) conduct a postevaluation. The advantages and disadvantages of this type of architectural-selection process are described. Sample checklists, policies, and building plans are included. (LMI)

This paper presents the results of a doctoral dissertation study that examined professional practice characteristics in connection with expressed continuing professional education (CPE) needs among licensed landscape architects. Out of the 650 surveys sent to landscape architects across the United States, 336 were returned. The survey found that gender which has been rarely investigated in the CPE literature, appeared to be of greater influence than other individual variables on needs assessment measures conducted with learners across all three scales in the study. It also found that age and years of practice had little influence beyond measuring current level of competence, and that region and location had little influence on perceived CPE needs. The study highlights the importance of the cultural variables related to practice setting. Further, the study identifies a relationship between demographic variables and commonly used assessment scales. (Contains 23 references.) (MDM)

Using data from federal government records and professional membership organizations, this study examines trends in demographics, education, employment, and earnings of architects and individuals in design arts occupations between 1940-1990. Findings indicate that: (1) participation in architecture and design occupations has increased slightly as a percentage of the experienced labor force and (2) significantly as part of the arts labor force. (3) The majority of participants in these occupations are between 25-44 years of age. (4) Architecture and design occupations remain predominantly white, male professions. (5) Only in the decorator profession does participation by women exceed that of men. (6) The Northeast and Midwest have lost their historic dominance in the architecture and design professions. (7) College experience has increased for participants in these professions. (8) The percentage of self employed architects has decreased, the percentage of self employed designers has increased. High levels of part time employment among decorators and designers reflect the large percentage of women in these professions. (9) Architectural receipts of $10 billion and graphic arts receipts of $3.2 billion were recorded in 1987. (10) Median income of architects and those in design professions was above that of the labor force average in 1989. Aspects of professionalism and competition, design deficits, and aesthetic utopian attitudes are discussed. Contains charts, statistical tables, and 58 references. (NP)

This report examines the characteristics of the artist population in 1990 and compares them to the 1980 and 1970 census results. Artist occupations selected for study include: actors and directors; announcers; architects; authors; dancers; designers; musicians and composers; painters, sculptors, craft-artists, and artist printmakers; photographers; teachers of art, drama and music in higher education; and artists, performers, and related workers not classified elsewhere. The study examines: (1) "Growth in the Artist Work Force"; (2) "Geographic Trends"; (3) "Demographic Trends"; (4) "Trends Among Women and Minority Artists"; (5) "Age Trends"; (6) "Education Trends"; (7) "Full Time Work Last Year"; (8) "Earnings Trends"; and (9) "Occupation Profiles." Findings indicate that very significant changes have occurred over the target time period. Artists have become more geographically diverse over the two decades. Growth among artist occupations has substantially outdistanced that for the labor force as a whole and for all professional occupations, of which artists account for about one-tenth. Incomes for artists, however, lag significantly behind those for other professionals of equal education and training. The report includes extensive tables and graphs of statistical information. (MM)

This paper presents a technique for applying the Rule Space Model of cognitive diagnosis (Tatsuoka, 1983) to assessment in a semantically rich domain. Responses of 122 architects to 22 architecture test items developed to assess a range of architectural knowledge were analyzed using Rule Space. Verbal protocol analysis guided the construction of a model of examinee performance, consisting of processes for constructing an initial representation of an item (labeled "understand"), forming goals and performing actions based on those goals ("solve"), and determining whether goals have been attempted and satisfied ("check"). Item attributes derived from these processes formed the basis for diagnosis. Successful diagnostic classifications were obtained for approximately 65 percent, 90 percent, and 40 percent of examinees based, respectively, on attributes associated with the "understand,""solve," and "check" processes of the problem-solving model. The findings support the effectiveness of Rule Space in a complex domain and suggest directions for developing new architecture items by using attributes particularly effective at distinguishing among examinees of different ability levels. Nine tables and three figures present study data. (Contains 23 references.) (Author/SLD)