Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC) was organized by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in partnership with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to increase student learning in developmental--or basic skills--classes. However, their concern was not just the success of students in classes…

Little is known about the payoffs to apprenticeship training in the German speaking countries for the participants. OLS estimates suggest that the returns are similar to those of other types of schooling. However, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the types of apprenticeships offered, and institutional descriptions suggest that there might be an…

Because of the positive effects of learning communities with undergraduates, these researchers proposed the Collaborative Learning Initiatives that Motivate Bi-cultural experiences model (CLIMB) to implement learning communities within graduate counseling and educational administration courses. This article examines the concept of learning…

This report provides a detailed examination of the various federal programs for children and families and outlines ways in which the United States Congress and Executive Branch could make these programs work better. Intricate and often overlapping goals and actions are typical of the Congressional committees and Executive Branch departments that…

A descriptive exploratory study examined what impact community leadership development programs in Ohio had on leadership program participants' leadership skills. Data were gathered using multiple methods: face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews, and pre- and postassessments of leadership practices. The self-report questionnaire used was…

A study described and evaluated "First Steps," an intervention program for low-reading first graders that was implemented in four rural schools in western North Carolina. First Steps borrows heavily from Reading Recovery but differs significantly in the areas of pre-post assessment, tutor training, and teaching procedures. Attention was…

The Ounce of Prevention Fund is a public-private partnership which promotes the well-being of children and adolescents by working with families, communities, and policymakers. Following a letter from the Fund's directors reiterating that prevention programs save scarce resources, this report updates several prevention programs funded by this…

An action research project implemented a program for improving the conversational skills of language impaired high school students. The students attended high school in a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Poor conversational skills in the language impaired students were documented through teacher observation, teacher assessment, and…

This report describes the All Day Kindergarten (ADK) Program undertaken at 18 elementary schools in Columbus, Ohio, and presents an evaluation of the language development component of the program. ADK provides an extra half day of instruction, using a language-based curriculum to reinforce the skills, concepts, and educational experiences taught…

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education developed a pilot parent education program that began in 1981 and was available to parents of children in the state's 543 school districts. In 1984, the state legislature provided funding for the program and mandated that it be made available to all parents of children under 3 years of…

The Indian Education Programs supplement state, local, and tribal education efforts to improve the quality of Indian education and assure parental and community participation. Each year, the Office of Indian Education, assisted by the six regional Indian Education Technical Assistance Centers, selects effective projects to be showcased at the…

Presenting descriptions of seven successful emergent literacy programs, this book demonstrates that early literacy intervention programs with a focus on accelerated learning and on authentic reading and writing tasks can prevent many first-grade children from failing to learn to read. Programs described in the book focus on story book reading and…

After much trial and error, the Agricultural Technical Institute of the Ohio State University (ATI/OSO) discovered that training of writing lab tutors can best be done through collaboration of the Writing Lab Coordinator with the "Development of Tutor Effectiveness" course offered at the institute. The ATI/OSO main computer lab and…

This report examines the expansion of Head Start programs to include children from birth to age 3. The report notes that high-quality, comprehensive programs for families and young children have demonstrated their effectiveness in helping families raise healthy, confident, curious children and, by providing support to parents, increasing parents'…

This newsletter issue focuses on the 10 years of leadership provided by the Family Resource Coalition in the support of families. The centerpiece of this anniversary issue is an interview with Coalition founder and President Bernice Weissbourd, exploring how the original ideas of the family resource movement have been implemented over the past 10…