As a comprehensive child development program, Head Start provides education, health, nutrition, and social services to children and their families through direct services or referrals. Nearly four decades of research establish that Head Start delivers the intended services and improves the lives and development of the children and families it…

Describes a project called Subregional Approach to Improved Nursing Care, the central focus of which is to provide better use of human resources for improvement of patient care. (GB)

Discusses the term Theatre for Development (TFD) by addressing the theatre practice developed by a group of women in Mundemba Sub-Division, Cameroon, which was presented in Anne Tanyi-Tang's article "Theatre for Change: An Analysis of Two Performances by Women in Mundemba Sub-Division" in an earlier issue of this journal. Considers…

Notes that the majority of prevention efforts offer services to individual parents, families, or children with the goal of altering behaviors and attitudes that contribute to risk. Identifies what is known about the efficacy of prevention, highlights the most promising elements of prevention programming, and summarizes critical outstanding…

Describes the institutional and programmatic context in which a consultant-evaluation visit was requested at Washington State University and the evaluators' recommendations and subsequent changes that have taken place. Lists five reasons for requesting an evaluation. (MG)

Responses from 67 of 88 prison faculty indicate that (1) they perceive correctional education to be equivalent to traditional education; (2) prison students are viewed as equivalent in intelligence and motivation as college students; and (3) difficulties include students' impulsiveness, intimidation, and wide range of abilities. (JOW)

This is the fourth report of a process evaluation of Palm Beach County Prime Time, Inc., an intermediary organization dedicated to improving the quality of afterschool programs, by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. It covers the 2007-2008 program year, which was the inaugural year of Prime Time's formal Quality Improvement System (QIS)…

This study explores the efforts at Brigham Young University to improve preservice candidates' technology integration using the Teacher Work Sample (TWS) as an assessment tool. Baseline data that was analyzed from 95 TWSs indicated that students were predominantly using technology for productivity and information presentation purposes even though…

Background/Context: Community colleges are central to the United States' college completion goals. A popular strategy pushed by a number of influential policy organizations and foundations is a policy of tying state funding to community college completions, otherwise known simply as performance funding. This is happening despite little to no…

In a series of New Jersey Supreme Court decisions known as Abbott v. Burke, the 28 (now 31) urban school districts serving the state's poorest students were ordered to create systems of high-quality preschool for all three- and four-year-old children, beginning in the 1999-2000 school year. The Abbott Preschool Program now serves approximately…

Horizontal evaluation combines self-assessment and external evaluation by peers. Papa Andina, a regional network that works to reduce rural poverty in the Andean region by fostering innovation in potato production and marketing, has used horizontal evaluations to improve the work of local project teams and to share knowledge within the network. In…

Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) is a national not-for-profit organization whose mission is to increase the educational achievements, self-esteem, and life opportunities of elementary school children living in low-income urban communities. BELL has been engaged in formal evaluation, internally and externally, for more than five years and…

A growing body of empirical evidence shows that some financial aid programs increase college enrollment. Puzzlingly, there is little compelling evidence that Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, the primary federal student aid programs, are effective in achieving this goal. In this paper, we provide an in-depth review of this evidence, which taken as a…

The Department of Accounting at California State University Northridge (CSUN) has developed a unique sequence of courses designed to ensure that accounting students are trained not only in technical accounting, but also acquire critical thinking, research and communication skills. The courses have proven effective and have embedded assessment…