Science outreach programs that enable real-time interactions between scientists and school-aged children are known to positively impact learning gains and students' perceptions of scientists. To expand K-12 outreach by scientists, it is important to build structured outreach programs which offer scientists well-defined opportunities, while…

There are many actions schools and districts can take to help ensure a child's transition into kindergarten is smooth and stress-free for her and her family. This report highlights innovative efforts schools and districts across the country are taking to ease the transition into kindergarten for families and students, including students who did…

The immigrant population in Hong Kong is steadily increasing every year. This immigrant population largely comprises families, most of whom have pre-school and school-age children. However, limited information is known on the practices that immigrant parents adopt when they become involved in their children's schooling. In the present study, the…

The New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) is the largest public school system in the country, and regularly communicates with more families in a month than many school districts do in a year. Innovations in communication or outreach efforts can influence profoundly how families engage with the district, especially innovations in outreach…

Poor school attendance in the early grades is predictive of poor subsequent educational outcomes. We report on a pilot intervention aiming to reduce chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. We designed and implemented a two-way, text-based parent-school communication system to encourage daily attendance, provide parents with personalized feedback on…

Generating solutions for society's complex problems will require the development of a diverse workforce that is committed to technological and social innovation. In the United States, this need is being addressed by the invention education movement, a goal of which is to promote the adoption of an inventive mindset among K-12 students through…

This report explains how the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act came to be and offers promising practices and lessons other states may adapt to their political and economic contexts. Through in-depth interviews with advocates and state leaders, the authors uncovered five factors that contributed to TISA's passage that have…

This article was designed to explore the behaviors observed and document the interactions of older and younger siblings in a children's choir rehearsal environment. Observations by a music education student observer, the director/teacher of the group, and some parent recollections indicate that the sibling interactions do have a primarily positive…

Even though engineering outreach to K-12 schools initially seemed to be a simple undertaking, it proved to require complex design solutions related to a variety of issues. The purpose of this design case is to tell the story of our National Science Foundation (NSF) supported engineering outreach project, that took place between the years of…

When transitional kindergarten (TK) in California began in the 2012-13 school year, there were many questions about this new grade--available typically to only those children born during the month of November. Parents wondered: What is TK? Who is eligible? Does my district offer TK? Is TK right for my child? With the delayed final approval of TK…

When many of today's parents were students, the process of applying and enrolling in school was fairly simple and involved few choices. In many cases, a family visited the neighborhood public school at the start of the school year and enrolled the child at the school's office. But now, the proliferation of school-choice policies in districts…

The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) serves K-12 students and teachers, school districts, state education agencies, and ministries of education throughout the world with curriculum materials, digital resources, professional development, leadership development (through our Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform [LASER]…

This study examined an urban school readiness initiative that developed parent leadership as a key strategy for increasing the likelihood that all children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Parent Leaders were primarily immigrant mothers who conducted outreach activities and child developmental screenings with low income, under-served, urban…

This study explores the underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students in California's community college Dual Enrollment (DE) programs. The study investigates how DE staff describe an understanding and commitment towards equity for Black and Latinx students in DE programs and how staff engage in equitably aimed praxis to serve Black and Latinx…

Research suggests that providing high-quality early education experiences for young learners can support positive outcomes for these children, including higher achievement test scores and even higher graduation rates. Transitional kindergarten (TK) aims to provide an additional year of kindergarten to California's youngest students to help them…