In 2012, the United States Department of Education announced the Race to the Top-District grants. One joint award was made to two large educational cooperatives in the same state that together represented 111 mostly rural schools in 22 districts. One of the grant's identified four essential projects was the implementation of personalized learning.…

The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.

The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects, research conducted through grant activities, and in-progress research are…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program, authorized by Congress in 2011, is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development programs for children from birth through age 5. This discretionary grant program is administered jointly by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services…

The purpose of this inquiry is to consider how the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods (PNs) program can improve persistently low-achieving urban schools by making their "neighborhoods whole again" through community capacity building for education reform. As the "first federal initiative to put education at the…

Preschool parent interventions may produce downstream benefits if initial intervention gains are sustained and improve later socialization experiences. This study explored associations between initial effects of the REDI (Research-based Developmentally Informed) Parent program and later benefits. A randomized trial involving 200 Head Start…

Notwithstanding broad utility of COPs (classroom observation protocols), there has been limited documentation of the psychometric properties of even the most popular COPs. This study attempted to fill this void by closely examining the item and domain-level IRR (inter-rater reliability) of a COP that was used in a federally funded striving readers…

This study reports finding from an ex post facto causal-comparison study utilizing data from a multifaceted program evaluation of a professional development approach to classroom management known as Development Designs 1 and Developmental Designs 2 (DD1 & D2). Data from this program evaluation indicate that teachers implement a number of classroom…

Delaware was in the first group of states to receive a federal grant in 2012 to improve early care and education services and increase the number of infants, toddlers, and preschool-age children in high-quality programs. One component of the state's grant is a rigorous validation process for Delaware Stars for Early Success, a voluntary quality…

This report, prepared by the staff of the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs of the U. S. Senate, is intended as a profile of the "half-full, half-empty plate which the Federal food programs represent to the nation's poor." The report focuses on various aspects of poverty and hunger such as: (1) poverty in the nation--the poverty line,…

Describes an evaluation of an innovative site-based service program, the Growth and Achievement Program (GAP). Results show that GAP clients had significantly higher gain scores than did the comparison group and were less likely to rely on public financial assistance as their primary source of income. (RJM)

The School Breakfast Program (SBP) celebrates its 20th year in 1995. It is an entitlement program available to any public or nonprofit private school or youth home that chooses to participate. This report includes the latest available school-breakfast participation data for school year 1994-95, and compares it to similar data for the previous…

This report presents information from a study on the needs of homeless people which (1) identified and described characteristics of federal programs targeted for homeless people and key nontargeted programs available to assist low income people generally; (2) identified amounts and types of funding for these programs in fiscal year 1997; and (3)…

A study of the Kansas Cooperative Extension's Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) was intended to determine the effectiveness of instruction provided by this federally funded program. The program endeavors to benefit low income families by improving participants' food and nutrition practices, behaviors, and food consumption…

This report provides an overview of the poverty problem and possible solutions. The available statistics and their limitations are summarized. The complementary roles of income-maintenance and employment policies are discussed. Because employment policies are limited to those who can be made employable, the report concludes that liberal changes in…