Homelessness is a traumatic experience with long-term consequences, particularly for infants and toddlers in their most critical stages of development. Yet homelessness among young children is hidden. Lack of shelter, fear of having children removed from parental custody, and restrictive eligibility criteria for housing programs mean that most…

While college costs have risen significantly in the past few decades, some of those cost increases can be partially mitigated by financial aid for low-income families. But many low- and moderate-income families vastly overestimate the cost of college, leading them to assume that enrolling their children in college, particularly a four-year school,…

The International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, recently established by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is an alleged attempt at public outreach. The NSF encourages scientists to submit visualizations that would appeal to non-expert audiences by displaying their work in an annual "special feature" in "Science" magazine,…

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awards grants to provide shelter and services to runaway and homeless youth through the Basic Center, Transitional Living and Street Outreach Programs. In response to a mandate for a review of the grant award process for these programs in the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No.…

The Race to the Top Assessment program was authorized as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). In September 2010, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) awarded competitive, four-year grants to two consortia of states, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter…

The Educational Opportunity Centers (EOC) program is one of the federal TRIO programs, a group of eight outreach programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education that are designed to support and assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to attainment of a postbaccalaureate…

The report examines the status of handicapped children in Project Head Start for the 1981-82 year. Chapter 1 presents background information, including an overview of Head Start policies on services to handicapped children. Chapter 2 reviews data collection measures and summarizes findings regarding the number of handicapped children enrolled and…

Since 1965 the federal government has attempted to provide low socioeconomic status students with equal access to postsecondary education through the Higher Education Act and its multiplicative programmatic efforts. Implemented as one such program in 1998, the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, has been…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…

Supporting parental-involvement research findings, Congress in 1995 appropriated $10 million to fund 28 parent information and resource centers in 27 states and Washington, D.C. In 1999, 58 more were funded. Centers communicate personably with parents via newsletters, referral networks, websites, cable TV, and toll-free numbers. (MLH)

In recognizing the importance of energy conservation to education, the U.S. Office of Environmental Education produced an Instructional Resource Package on environment and energy. In addition to the interdisciplinary packets, fact sheets on energy technologies were developed. Outreach programs were designed to inform teachers about the…

Noting that children with special health care needs (CSHCN) make up one of every six children eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), this study examined how SCHIP responded to the needs of children with chronic illnesses and disabilities. This qualitative study was based on the implementation experiences in 18 states.…

This summary evaluates a federal demonstration program to reach "disconnected" youth not currently served by job training programs under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Disconnected youth are defined as those who have lost or never developed the traditional values of their communities, who do not participate in traditional…

As a condition of receiving federal funding for elementary and secondary education programs, states each year provide vast amounts of data to Education. While the need for information that informs evaluation is important (particularly with the No Child Left Behind Act), Education's data gathering has heretofore presented some problems. It has been…

The poor record of affirmative action plans in government demonstrates that the Carter administration's plan to reform the Civil Service is not working. It is the management that has failed to take the steps necessary to translate pronouncements into practice. (Author/EB)