In 2009, Vanderbilt University's Peabody Research Institute, with the assistance of the Tennessee Department of Education's Division of Curriculum and Instruction, initiated a rigorous, independent evaluation of the state's Voluntary Prekindergarten program (TN- VPK). TN-VPK is a full-day prekindergarten program for four-year-old children expected…

States are in various stages of reforming how they evaluate their educators, all striving for a new system that can assess a range of abilities and practices over long periods of time and capture the full nature of an educator's performance. The strongest systems look at teaching in a more comprehensive way than evaluations have done in the past,…

Training and technical assistance programs for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have emerged in many states as educators, administrators, and institutions of higher education attempt to address the increasing needs for enhancing the knowledge and skills of educators and disseminating the ever-growing knowledge of educational practices. This report…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 1 in 88 children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). CDC's estimate comes from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, which monitors the number of 8-year-old children with ASDs living in diverse communities throughout the…

Within the US Department of Education's new flexibility initiative, there are three key and fundamental areas of focus, each referred to as a "principle." The second of these is that State Education Agencies (SEAs) must develop and implement differentiated recognition, accountability, and support to assure that all students are taught by…

This brief studies California's introduction of the Early Assessment Program to bridge the gap between K-12 educational standards and postsecondary education requirements, similar to the Common Core State Standards movement.

Schools to Watch (STW) is an initiative of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform that identifies high performing middle grades schools based on 37 criteria. Initiated in 2003, California's program, Schools to Watch--Taking Center Stage (STW-TCS), has designated 36 schools. This report describes STW nationally and in California,…

This qualitative study examines the distinguishing themes of cultural responsiveness in state- and federally-derived document-based learning materials. Two data sources--"Teaching with Documents" articles in Social Education and Document Based Questions on New York State 11th-grade U.S. History and Government Regents exams--were examined…

In 1999, Public Law 106-169 established the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) to provide States with flexible funding to carry out programs that assist youth in making the transition from foster care to self-sufficiency. The law also required the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to develop a data collection…

YoungStar is a program of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) created to improve the quality of child care for Wisconsin children. YoungStar is designed to: (1) Evaluate and rate the quality of care given by child care providers; (2) Help parents choose the best child care for their kids; (3) Support providers with tools and training to…

In collaboration with the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), the Public Policy Forum surveyed 1,425 child care center directors, center employees, and family child care providers statewide. The survey was designed to provide a picture of the status of Wisconsin's child care workforce in terms of educational attainment, experience,…

The number of students attending afterschool programs has skyrocketed in recent years, currently serving an estimated 8.4 million children (Afterschool Alliance, 2009). Consequently, the demand for high quality afterschool programs, and to learn from successful ones, has never been greater. This "Making Afterschool Programs Better"…

One of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act that has gained prominence as a policy focus only in the last several years is the requirement that poor and minority children be served by highly qualified teachers to no less a degree than other, more affluent children. Under the Obama administration, the focus on "highly qualified"…

This Quick Reference Document is being distributed by the Regional Resource Center Program ARRA/Fiscal Priority Team to provide RRCP state liaisons and other (Technical Assistance) TA providers with a summary of critical fiscal monitoring and support activities they may be involved in during calendar years 2011 and 2012. Like other documents in…

Because newborn hearing screening has become the standard of care in the United States, every state has established an early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) program responsible for establishing, maintaining, and improving the system of services needed to serve children with hearing loss and their families. While significant developments…