Presents a model for ensuring quality teaching that balances the necessity of research-based data with the equally vital need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual students.

The International Handbook of Research on Teachers and Teaching provides a fresh look at the ever changing nature of the teaching profession throughout the world. This collection of over 70 articles addresses a wide range of issues relevant for understanding the present educational climate in which the accountability of teachers and the standardized testing of students have become dominant.

Covers scope of longitudinal research at community colleges, effectiveness indicators, etc.

Proven strategies for launching, sustaining, and monitoring a reform that will offer all students access to the best curriculum, raise achievement across the board, and close the achievement gap.

Longitudinal student tracking systems now serve a multitude of masters. Growing accountability demands from states, accreditors, and the federal government prominently feature such measures as persistence and graduate rates and time-to-degree. At the same time, resource shortfalls are driving institutions and state higher education systems to examine their operations more carefully in order to achieve greater coherence and efficiency; understanding and monitoring student flow is a prominent part of this effort. In light of these developments, student tracking has come of age. This volume of New Directions for Institutional Research describes important changes in the requirements for student tracking data bases and examines the expanding technical possibilities provided by statewide administrative data bases and by the availability of greatly enhanced data-manipulation and statistical tools for constructing and analyzing longitudinal data files. This is the 87th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Institutional Research. For more information on the series, please see the Journals and Periodicals page.