In 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. An executive summary of Latino College Completion in 50 states synthesizes information on 50 state factsheets and builds on the national benchmarking guide. Each…

This dissertation examined the application of evidence-based tutoring for oral reading fluency (ORF) to a natural setting, using teachers as parent trainers. Measures used to determine the impact of parent tutoring included treatment integrity, student reading outcomes, attitudes towards involvement and reading, and social validity. Six teachers…

In the Baltimore region, a successful housing mobility program is providing families living in very disadvantaged inner city communities with a new home and a chance for a new life. Minority voucher holders in the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly titled Section 8) have often been limited to living in "voucher submarkets"…

The Research to Practice (RTP) column in "The Journal of Continuing Higher Education" has recently focused on evaluation methods that continuing education (CE) units can utilize, reports on surveys of CE practitioners, and recommendations for research on dynamics that impact CE programs and the students enrolling in them. In this article, the…

This document is the second quarterly progress report for the evaluation of Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) programs for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. The report covers the period from July 1, 2008, through September 30, 2008. The intent of the report is to provide Probation and the community-based organizations (CBOs)…

In 2006, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began funding the Model Replication Institutions (MRI) program, which sought to improve the quality, availability, and diversity of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Faced with pressing national priorities in the STEM fields and chronic gaps in postsecondary…

Purpose: This study identifies best practices for school nutrition professionals serving the nutritional needs of Pre-Kindergarten (PreK) children in public schools. Methods: The two-phased study followed a best practices research model (BPRM) utilizing the seven practice categories identified from previous PreK research. In Phase I, an expert…

New teachers need help. From day one, new teachers, largely on their own, are responsible for running a classroom and ensuring student learning, as well as fulfilling administrative requirements. Little wonder that 14% of new teachers leave by the end of their first year, 33% leave within three years, and almost 50% leave in five years (Ingersoll,…

Institutional leaders, educators, and policymakers are challenged to improve educational outcomes for all students, including Latinos. "Excelencia" in Education responds to this challenge by linking research, policy, and practice that supports higher educational achievement for Latino students. Premier in this effort is Examples of…

A socioeconomic status (SES) gap in mathematical knowledge emerges early and widens prior to school entry. To address this gap, a curricular intervention, "Pre-K Mathematics," was developed and found to be effective in prior efficacy research. In the present project, the next step was taken in evaluating this intervention. Specifically,…

In this paper, I argue that in-service language-teacher education programs should consider all elements of the linguistic, geographical and cultural context of the teachers the course is designed for, and respond to this context in a constructivist way in program design and implementation. Using qualitative case-study data, I focused on the…

Life in the Community is an action research project with three objectives: (1) To work with four organisations from the third sector to improve the daytime opportunities for up to 40 people with higher support needs and help them to be more included in the life of a community; (2) To develop the capacity of organisations in the not-for-profit…

This study explores the common features of high-quality traineeships using case studies from the cleaning, child care, construction, retail, finance and insurance, and meat processing areas. The research identifies a range of policy measures that could improve both the practice and image of traineeships. A good practice guide has also been…

This research project was organized in three phases. Phase I began with the selection of the high performing urban school site to be studied. Phase II of the study centered on the researcher's study of the school's policies, curriculum, instructional practices, personnel, and related artifacts. The researcher processed, analyzed, and coded all…

The overarching goal of the "Supporting Best Practices in Student Success Project" is to create, enhance, or expand successful programs that are replicable and can be scaled to greatly improve the percentage of underserved students who complete postsecondary education. In doing so, National College Access Network (NCAN) aimed to build…