In this commentary of "Evaluating the Gifted Program of an Urban School District Using a Modified Regression Discontinuity Design" by Davis, Engberg, Epple, Sieg, and Zimmer, we examine the background of the study, critique the methods used, and discuss the results and implications. The study used a fuzzy regression discontinuity design…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

This commentary discusses the wide acceptance of and the expenditure of limited resources on unproven behavioral therapies for individuals with autism. Considerations that need to be reviewed before adopting a behavioral treatment are outlined, including the need to establish whether direct effects can be attributed to a treatment. (Contains 11…

This special issue focuses on several methodological issues in the evaluation of the largest mental health and substance abuse project for children and adolescents conducted at a single site, the U.S. Army's Fort Bragg Child and Adolescent Mental Health Demonstration program. The introduction and seven articles describe this program and the…

L. Ku supports the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program as effective in improving children's health. D. Besharov and P. Germanis reiterate their earlier criticisms that the program is less effective than commonly believed and that research evidence about its effectiveness is flawed. (SLD)

An evaluation of Round One of a pilot study of a system for identifying effective youth organizations around the world is presented in this report. The report begins with a page of general observations about the successes and shortcomings of the pilot study, indicating that in general the study accomplished its objectives but that a need for…

The Project on State-Level Child Outcomes was initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to examine the effects on children of waiver policies related to state welfare reform efforts prior to the passage of federal welfare reform legislation. This report details the project's examination of child well-being in the context of…

Each of the four issues of this newsletter published in 1993 consists of one article dealing with a particular policy debate. Number 1, "Canadian Special Education Policies: Children with Learning Disabilities in a Bilingual and Multicultural Society" (Linda S. Siegel and Judith Wiener), discusses social and cultural factors affecting…

"Sesame Street," 30-years-old in 1999, is possibly the most influential program in children's educational television. This book collects and synthesizes key research studies since the program's inception, describing the processes by which educational content and research are integrated into production, reviewing major studies of the…

Noting that the disappointing findings of the first-year evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) after-school program were offered as a rationale for a requested decrease in funding in President Bush's fiscal year 2004 education budget, this report compiles expert commentary on methodological issues in that evaluation…

Recruiting schools and kids to participate in drug prevention evaluations is no longer, if it ever was, a "done deal." Since the mid-1980s, schools have been inundated with requirements for drug programs and requests to cooperate with program evaluations. As a consequence, both treatment and control schools are harder to find. In addition, many…