Poverty and unemployment aren't spread evenly across cities or regions, but rather are concentrated in disinvested urban neighborhoods and rural communities around the country. These communities are home to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. Despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions for families in the United…

The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in "youth development" as both a policy and a community approach to helping children achieve healthy outcomes as young adults. Despite the success of frameworks which have shifted the focus from intervening with teenagers who exhibited "high risk" behaviors to improving developmental outcomes as…

This paper depicts the origins, operation, and success of the Community Mediation Service established at the University of Hawaii, Manoa in 1979. During the 1970s, a national impetus for change arose out of stresses in the justice system including clogged courts, expensive and lengthy litigation, distrust of lawyers, and dissatisfaction of both…

"Engaging Residents to Improve Results for Children and Youth, Families and Communities" is a "Toolkit" that is the product of an international working group composed of delegates from six participating nations--Chile, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2002, the working group set out…

This monograph presents a comprehensive, community-based framework to support individuals, agencies, and communities in efforts to improve the well-being of children and youth. The monograph, with accompanying executive summary, features five childhood needs and describes promising strategies for meeting those needs. Chapter 1 of the monograph…

The community networking model presented in this report was prepared to aid community members in strenthening and developing the networking process among business, community service agencies, government, churches, arts, recreation, and education. The model is designed to be used in a workshop in which participants are grouped in teams of…

Spurred by the economic boom of the late 1990s and a decades-old national standards movement that increased both the transparency of assessment results and the awareness of urban public school failure, communities across the country are turning to community organizing as a strategy for improving public education. As organizations confront the…

Guidelines and ideas for creating successful school/community projects are provided in this handbook. Organized like a cookbook, the book contains 43 chapters by individual contributors who take a community-based approach to education, in which the schools are the pivotal institutions of a community. The first section outlines the roles, or…

In 1999, Public Education Network received a 3-year grant as part of a set of projects to better link research and data to policy and practice change. The project was intended to build public knowledge and understanding of how to improve teaching through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on teachers and teaching. The project…

Virginia's first state plan for child day care begins with 14 sections covering several aspects of child care. Section I reviews child care history and trends. Sections II, III, IV, and V argue, respectively, that child day care is important to government, business, families, and children. Elements of a comprehensive child day care delivery system…

This manual is written for adults working in the schools to organize student governments. It is based on the experience of the Youth Action Program (YAP) of East Harlem (New York City) in organizing and developing student leadership. The manual is divided into 10 sections. "Student Government: Leadership and Purposes" explores the…

More than 50 years ago, in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sending children to separate schools solely on the basis of race was unconstitutional. Seven years prior, the Supreme Court ruled in Mendez vs. Westminster and the California Board of Education that Mexican American children could not be denied access…

Describes the origin, development, and operation of a New Mexico citizen's action group in its efforts to prevent air and water pollution. Concludes that nongovernmental groups can play an important role in educating citizens and shaping public policy. (CFR)

Interviews conducted in Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District sought answers for improving educational quality in the district, which has the highest dropout rate, the lowest holding power, and the lowest standardized test scores in Kentucky. Members of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development interviewed 155 people from 15 of…