The Youth Development Initiative (YDI) was a 5-year, $4.3 million dollar project to strengthen the management and organizational capacities of nonprofit youth-serving organizations so they could better meet expanding demands for service in their communities. Ten youth-serving organizations in Fresno, California, and 10 in Los Angeles participated…

In 2000, approximately 877 million adults worldwide were illiterate and 113 million children did not attend school. More than two-thirds of those individuals lived in East and South Asia, and two-thirds were females. Functional illiteracy remains high in developed and developing nations alike. The reasons include weak training in how to teach…

The impact of one-stop career centers on the U.S. Employment Service (ES) program was examined through case studies of one-stop initiatives in the following states: Georgia; Ohio; California; Iowa; Oregon; Massachusetts; Texas; Utah; and Wisconsin. Of the nine case study states, only Georgia had not begun instituting a one-stop career center…

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota developed a new engineering design curriculum to meet the pedagogical needs of undergraduate and graduate engineering students and to excite and retain engineering students of both genders and from all backgrounds. The curriculum is based on a series of guided, hands-on…

The National Assembly on School-Based Health Care conducted the 2004-05 Census, the tenth count of school-based health centers (SBHCs) since 1986, to: (1) provide a better understanding of the role of SBHCs in meeting the needs of underserved children and adolescents; (2) collect up-to-date data on demographics, staffing services, operations,…

The purpose of Even Start, as outlined in federal legislation, is to help break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and low literacy by providing a unified family literacy program for low-income families. Even Start has three related goals: (1) to help parents improve their literacy or basic education skills; (2) to help parents become full…

England's preregistration undergraduate degree in nursing and midwifery programs were subjected to a comprehensive evaluation that included the following data collection activities: in-depth field studies of 26 of 32 three- and four-year undergraduate nursing and midwifery programs; individual interviews with 129 lecturers, 54 students, 52…

This report to the Minnesota legislature examines children and their families who participated in the Head Start program during 1993-1994, and summarizes information on the following program areas: (1) Head Start program overview; (2) funding facts; (3) program year 1993-1994 activities; and (4) agency specific information. The Head Start program…

In 1995, efforts to develop Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system focused on implementing Australia's first national strategy for VET, Towards a Skilled Australia. All stakeholders in VET worked to advance Australia's national strategy for VET, which revolved around the following four themes: responsiveness (maximizing…

These guidelines and quality indicators are designed to help providers of vocational programs and services in California to identify policies, procedures, and practices that are exemplary or that might be improved. Addressed in the individual sections of the guide are the following topics: planning; fiscal resources; facilities, equipment, and…

A study examined the characteristics of effective secondary vocational education programs for a variety of special needs populations (disabled, disadvantaged, and limited English proficient individuals; single parents; and persons enrolled in programs to eliminate sex bias and sex stereotyping). The following eight states were studied: California,…

This report on the program highlights of the first national conference on urban literacy contains 40 information sheets describing the literacy programs represented at the conference. Each program information sheet contains some or all of the following: the name of the program; the name, address, and phone number of a program contact person; the…

These congressional hearings contain testimony pertaining to the continuation of funding for the Young Adult Conservation Corps (YACC) and the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC). (Modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, the YACC and the YCC are youth conservation programs that provide jobs to youth in such areas as tree planting, trail…

This collection of program descriptions consists of case studies of 47 programs that contain promising approaches to sex-fair vocational education. The case studies (which represent programs in 39 states and the District of Columbia) describe programs that address the educational and job-skill training needs of such groups as displaced homemakers,…

This resource booklet contains an operational appraisal instrument for use in evaluating the program effectiveness of secondary school guidance and counseling activities. It first presents criteria for exemplary guidance programs, which form the basis for the evaluation. Program areas appraised by this instrument include philosophy and objectives,…