Adoption as a Diversity Issue in Professional Preparation: Perceptions of Preservice Education Professionals

This research explored preservice teachers' and counselors' perceptions of the needs of adopted children in schools. Using a quasi-experimental survey design, this study examined the views of preservice teachers and counselors toward adoptive families before and after an educational intervention. Findings from this research support the effectiveness of a brief, standardized intervention in increasing preservice education professionals' awareness of particular challenges adopted children and their families may face in school settings. Qualitative data indicated preservice education professionals' awareness of adopted children and their families in their internship experiences. Learning about adoptive families can be part of sensitizing education professionals' to the growing diversity of families and children in U.S. schools.     

An integrated model for measuring management performance

A model of organizational performance measurement that compels attention to the proper balance among quality, cost, and access; takes into account patient perceptions; produces clear targets for continual quality improvement (CQI); yields easily understood graphical displays; and captures health care organizations in simultaneous operation across the functions of cost, quality, and access was designed for the 22 medical treatment facilities of the Strategic Air Command. Such a tool provides practitioners, payers, and patients a range of information--from systemwide, facility, clinical service, and practitioner-specific insights on current performance to resource forecasts and easily understood targets for CQI. This case study shows that integrated performance modeling may be useful in examining many health management and reform issues.