The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of recommendations from selected educational reports and state mandates on curriculum, standards and policy in teacher education programs. The survey population included deans of teacher education in thirty-five public and private colleges in the states of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. The study also determined the attitude of the deans regarding the recommendations from the selected reports and state mandates in the survey states and colleges. The recommendations analyzed in the study were from the reports: A Nation At Risk. The Imperative for Education Reform, High School. A Report on Secondary Education in America, Meeting-the Need for Quality. Action in-the South, Paideia Proposal: An Educational-Manifesto, and A Place Called School. Prospects for the Future.A thirty item questionnaire containing recommendations from the selected reports and state mandates related to states surveyed was developed and utilized. Six research questions were tested statistically by use of percent response, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation,analysis of variance and covariance, and Chi-Square. The .05 level of significance was established as the critical probability level for the significant results. The .01 level was also indicated to further identify levels of significance.Conclusions1. There was a greater tendency for the deans of teacher education to agree with the recommendations that had been implemented and a tendency to disagree with the recommendations that were not implemented.2. The majority of the recommendations that were standard oriented were implemented or proposed for implementation.3. A majority of the recommendations that were policy oriented were not considered for implementation.4. The majority of the deans did not favor recommendations that stressed stringent standards regarding the admittance of students to teacher education programs.5. The majority of the deans did not favor reform in curriculum such as the recommendations related to pedagogy and teaching methods, and were divided between disagree and undecided regarding the merits of a five year teacher education program.6. The type of institution did make a difference when responding to recommendations from the reports. The private colleges favored more of the recommendations that were curricula oriented. The public colleges favored more recommendations that were standard oriented. The majorityof the predominantly black colleges did not favor recommendations that emphasized raising the entrance and exit standards in teacher education.This study found that state mandates had greatest influence on teacher education since the release of the national reform reports of 1983-1984. The national reports were not found to have significant influence on teacher education reform regarding implementation of suggested reform; however, the attitudes of the deans supported such reform effort in teacher education.

This study was conducted to determine whether there were significant factors contributing to a teacher's ability to perform effectively in the classroom. An approximate 5% stratified random sample was selected from 9,401 possible subjects in Florida's Beginning Teacher Program between 1982 and 1985. A comparison of descriptive and reportive data was performed for teachers who completed and teachers who did not complete the program. Statistical measures included the use of contingency tables, chi-square statistic, frequency distributions and t-tests. Results suggested that a teacher's possibility of successfully completing Florida's Beginning Teacher Program was influenced by the participant's age, grade point average, type of university, college of education background, student teaching experience and teaching field. Of the teachers surveyed, those teachers who completed the Beginning Teacher Program reported significantly higher levels of performance in competencies dealing with discipline and motivation. All teachers cited peer teachers and coaching as the most common methods of assistance. Teachers who did not complete the program were more likely to lack student teaching and education background, to teach in critical shortage areas and to receive more assistance from principals than more successful teachers.

This study reports and discusses the impact of technical barriers on the effectiveness of professional development as related to a distance education system based course: a case study of the web world wonders environmental science learning community in Florida. The project involved 4th through 12th grade public school teachers learning how to use GPS readers, digital cameras, and Arc View software for the purpose of utilizing a Website that enabled remote Internet camera access in Florida State Parks. Under the supervision of Florida State University and the Florida Department of Education those teachers received professional development in techniques for developing lesson plans utilizing the equipment and software as stated above. Using the Concept Based Adoption Model, a description of the teacher's demographics, Levels of Use and Stages of Concern with relation to gender, age, teaching experience, and technological experience was examined. Technical barriers were identified and an explanation of how they were overcome in the process of receiving the professional development is reported.