Preschool Development Grant (PDG) grantees and Head Start programs are funded to provide high-quality preschool education and comprehensive services to families meeting federal poverty guidelines. The overlap of program standards and services across these two programs provides unique opportunities for partnerships. This document provides examples…

Children from low-income families are more likely than those from higher income families to have poor social, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes. One approach that has helped parents and their young children is home visiting, which provides information, resources, and support to expectant parents and families with young…

Educational problems are many and varied. At-risk students, achievement gaps and poor student outcomes are hot topics that beg for improvement in equity across the board and stand in the way of achieving excellence. These educative, albeit, social justice issues are not new, but rather, are old problems revisited (Kaestle, 1983; Morrison, 2003).…

Differential response (DR), also referred to as alternative response (AR), family assessment response (FAR), or multiple track response, was developed to incorporate family-centered, strengths-based practices into child protective services (CPS), primarily by diverting lower risk families into an assessment track rather than requiring the…

Title VII provides funding for the education of American Indian/Alaska Native students based on a formula grant available to school districts, charter schools, and local education agencies (LEAs). This report explores why some eligible schools and districts do not apply for federal Title VII, potentially resulting in American Indian/Alaska Native…

The development of a school improvement plan (SIP) has become an integral part of many school reform efforts. However, there are almost no studies that empirically examine the effectiveness of SIPs. The few studies examining the planning activities of organizations have generally focused on the private sector and have not provided clear or…

K12 Inc. enrolls more public school students than any other private education management organization in the U.S. Much has been written about K12 Inc. (referred to in this report simply as "K12") by financial analysts and investigative journalists because it is a large, publicly traded company and is the dominant player in the operation…

This report is a synopsis of the formal evaluation of Project Awareness, cooperatively conducted by seven Western states and designed to help educators recognize and work effectively to eliminate sex bias in education. A major component of the project, for educators and citizens, was the development of a training program designed to increase…

This report presents evaluation data on Title I compensatory reading and mathematics programs for kindergarten through grade 12 in public schools, private schools, and institutions for neglected and delinquent children in Clark County, Nevada. Included in the report is information on the number of participants in the different programs, the extent…

The career education project for the Washoe County Schools, Nevada, was conducted from January, 1972, until August, 1973, for the 30,000 pupils in the district. The project had five goals: (1) expand the present career awareness program in the elementary grades, (2) expand the exploratory programs in the junior high grades, (3) establish a…

A survey of 140 parents of Nevada 4-H members found that 4-H programs successfully taught a variety of life skills to youth. Active members learned more about life skills than less active members, although all showed gains. The quality of adult leadership skills and the instructional effectiveness of 4-H competitions and projects were highly…

A survey of a number of small elementary schools in the Nevada Western States Small Schools Project (WSSSP) provides a descriptive review of promising teaching practices and an assessment of additional needs. Promising practices observed include high teacher interest and pupil involvement; creativity; individualized instruction; and use of…

The Bienvenido Bilingual Education Project was funded under Title VII of the Elementary Secondary Education Act and implemented in kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms of two elementary schools in Clark County, Nevada. The project aimed to provide for the bilingual educational needs of Spanish speaking students which had not been met by…

Rural schools in the western region states of California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada are facing enormous challenges due to major shifts in the demographics of the region. Rapid growth in student enrollment, particularly of minority and limited English proficient students, the increasing rate of rural poverty and homelessness, and a projected…

A study sought to determine what four major populations think about six specific issues relating to vocational education programs. A secondary objective was to determine attitudes about some issues specific to each of the groups surveyed. The four population groups were eleventh grade male and female, vocational and academic students; parents;…