Federal and state mandates to provide transition services to students in the public schools requires educators to be trained to understand the concept and how to implement appropriate instruction and collaborative efforts in their programs. The authors of this article describe a distance learning project which can provide school personnel this training via satellite technology, on-campus courses, or inservice activities from their own staff. The Life Centered Career Education (LCCE) Curriculum, a comprehensive K-12 functional/life skills approach, is the focus of this training program. The distance learning option of the training program should be especially appealing to educators in rural areas for whom the cost and time involved in traveling to university campuses often limits their access to new information and training.

Donn Brolin is Professor, Educational & Counseling Psychology Department and Director, Life-Centered Career Education (LCCE)/Employability Enhancement Project at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Robert Loyd is Assistant Professor, Educational & Counseling Psychology Department and Assistant Director, Life-Centered Career Education (LCCE)/Employability Enhancement Project at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

This article describes the development of a Knowledge Battery to assess the competency level of secondary special education students receiving instruction in the Life-Centered Career Education (LCCE) Curriculum (Brolin, in press-a). The LCCE Knowledge Battery is one of two batteries developed by Brolin and associates that resulted in a comprehensive curriculum-based assessment instrument called the LCCE Inventory. The other battey, being completed at the time of this writing, is a Performance Battery. The LCCE Knowledge Battery consists of 89 subcompetency tests, each comprising 20 true-false and multiple-choice items. The battery was developed with the assistance of expert special education item writers and field tested extensively throughout the United States. Test development consisted of the building of an item pool, conducting a pilot and two field tests to identify good items, and a final field test to standardize the battery and determine cutting scores, reliability, and validity. The Inventory, including the Knowledge Battery, should be available from The Council for Exceptional Children in late 1988.

How can special education students be better prepared to lead productive adult lives and become integrated successfully into their community? This is one of the major questions being posed by professionals and others concerned about the career development of these individuals.