Most of the authors in this issue of "Future of Children" focus on a single strategy for helping both adults and children that could become a component of two-generation programs. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, on the other hand, look at actual programs with an explicit two-generation focus that have been tried in the…

The human brain develops rapidly in the first five years of life. High-quality early learning experiences can have a profound and lasting positive effect on young children during these years, setting the stage for success in kindergarten and beyond. This is especially true for young children with high needs who are from low-income families; who…

Nearly all governors have designated a state early childhood advisory council to advise policymakers in the state on how to best meet the needs of children from birth to school entry. Early childhood advisory councils in the states vary in their structure and scope, but all of them provide recommendations on improving the quality, availability,…

This paper presents an overview of the Head Start program. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), $1 billion will be provided to the Office of Head Start to promote the school readiness of low-income children, including children on federally-recognized reservations and children of migratory farm workers, by enhancing…

This study investigates the effects of the Family and Child Education (FACE) prekindergarten program on school readiness. The FACE program is located in Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools on some of the most rural American Indian (AI) reservations in the United States. It explicitly integrates the language and culture of the communities in…

The purpose of the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program is to improve the quality of early learning and development and close the achievement gap for children with high needs. The RTT-ELC grant competition focuses on improving early learning and development for young children by supporting States' efforts to increase the…

This brief is intended to provide State Education Agency (SEA) and Local Education Agency (LEA) educators with a brief overview of key components of GraduateFIRST, a Georgia program targeting issues impacting school completion for students with disabilities. Georgia's GraduateFIRST program has redefined the state's approach to raising graduation…

In recent years, government has recognized that programs like Head Start are cost-effective investments that improve the school readiness of disadvantaged children. Over the last decade, states have been leaders in supporting services to infants and toddlers and their families. Examples of such initiatives include Hawaii's Healthy Start program,…

"The ERIC Review," announces research results, publications, and new programs relevant to each issue's theme topic. This issue exammines children's readiness to enter school, via two principal articles: "Readiness: Children and Their Schools," by Lilian G. Katz; and "Getting Ready for Readiness: A Case Study," by…

"Reaching the Goals" is a series of eight books designed to inform people involved in education reform, or people who want to be involved, of the myriad of programs and resources that are available from the Federal Government to support each of the National Education Goals defined in 1990. This first book is dedicated to Goal 1,…

KIDS COUNT, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the United States. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all…

This report outlines the national and state environmental context for the SECCS Initiative in supporting MCH strategic planning in early childhood systems building. This strategic context has implications for roles, relationships, and activities within a planning process and ultimately an implementation process. It summarizes the opportunities and…