Details 40 music programs in Australia that serve children from birth to 5 years, including aims, methodologies, equipment and materials, and assessment procedures of each program. Encourages providers to critically reflect on the quality of the music education they provide and how well it builds on children's natural positive relationship with…

Interviewed Canadian caregivers and other stakeholders about training for family child care providers, and what they see as key training issues. Suggested that training programs be made more available and accessible, but also more relevant. Suggested that standardized core content be embedded in an adult learning process focusing on real-world…

Destabilizes the current construction of writing program administration by both questioning the theoretical constructs inherent in the traditional language writing program administrators use to represent themselves and suggesting a more ethically sound conceptual frame. Suggests an expanded way for understanding the remarkable opportunity…

Article shares ideas learned from the challenges of implementing a program evaluation infrastructure for a comprehensive developmental, guidance, and counseling program (CDGC). The benefits of continuous program evaluation for staff and students were evident in this urban school district. Developing support for sustainable program evaluation…

Discusses the continued incidence of food insecurity and hunger among American families despite a booming economy, and discusses the impact of malnutrition on children's development. Describes increases in demands for emergency food, suggesting changes in the Food Stamp Program. Identifies continued earnings inequalities. (KB)

Describes reorganization of an early childhood education program for teachers at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Lists changes in program elements, highlights program goals, describes key conceptual features, and includes student comments as evidence of program effectiveness. Notes that program focus is developing the students' capacity…

Describes a fund raising project, the "palette of prizes," to raise money for theatre for children in Blair County, Pennsylvania. Discusses creation of theater presentations involving nearly the entire student body. Suggests 11 lessons for other communities interested in using Blair County's arts education programming as a model. Discusses…

Outlines the policy context, purpose, design, and implementation of the Graduating Senior Survey at the University of Texas (El Paso). Discusses strategies to maximize campus involvement in using survey results concerning campus climate, the effectiveness of academic programs, and student services for systematic planning involving faculty,…

Examined effects of Smart Start, a broad-based community initiative, on the quality of child care for North Carolina preschoolers. Found that care quality, as measured by the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale, was significantly higher in 1996 than in 1994. Child care quality in 1996 was related to the number of local quality improvement…

To expand understanding of how to improve efficacy as well as enhance the implementation of effective aftercare programs, there is a need to study the following issues: how to operationalize aftercare as usual, how to improve retention and engagement in aftercare, and how to determine or match the optimal duration, dosage, and specificity of…

In this article, the importance of clinical supervision for school counselors is examined in terms of prior literature and the school counseling context. Standards relative to supervision are presented, followed by an overview of each article in the special section of the Counselor Education and Supervision journal (Vol. 45, No. 4, June 2006).

Testing and accountability programs can lead to some positive changes towards student performance. Here, Jones and Egley explore on whether Florida administrators thought that there was anything that could be done to improve the country's testing program in order to reduce or eliminate the types of concerns raised in George's study by conducting a…

"Engineering Criteria 2000" (EC 2000), the recently revised set of accreditation criteria for engineering programs in the USA, places considerable stress on outcomes assessments. EC 2000 requires the assessment results to be used to identify program improvements and for such usage and the resulting improvements to be documented. While…

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) was developed in response to a California State mandate (SB 2042), requiring teacher preparation programs to use performance assessments as one measure in making credentialing decisions. In this article, results are examined from statewide implementation of the PACT assessments during the…

Objective: To describe how content analysis of the news assists media advocates. Methods: A description of how findings from the Berkeley Media Studies Group's research on how 2 public health issues have been portrayed in the news has informed media advocacy. Results: For media advocates, the research suggests they make themselves available to…