Driven by new digital technologies, the future of learning is increasingly interactive, individualized, and full of real-world experiences and information. Unfortunately, the average school has about the same connectivity as the average American home, but serves 200 times as many users, and fewer than 20 percent of educators say their school's…

In 2012-2013, AISD pre-K students demonstrated growth in receptive vocabulary on a nationally-normed test. Students enrolled in multiple programs showed greater growth in receptive vocabulary in their native language than did other pre-K students. [Funding for this report was provided by Title I funds.]

Educational leaders not only face moral and ethical decisions regarding their classrooms, schools, districts, and education institutions, but they also must consider the complexities and threats that impact their communities. In this unstable era of war, terrorism, natural disasters, accountability, and high stakes testing, this process is…

While educators are eager to forget the financial woes of the past two years and return to the familiar routine of steady budget increases, the fiscal outlook for America's fourteen thousand school districts is bleak--not just for next year, but for a half decade or more. This calls for a new mindset among educators and an unfamiliar,…

This fact sheet is based on the 2009 Program Information Report (PIR) data, which all Head Start programs are required to complete on an annual basis. The total number of grantees/delegates for 2009 was 2,574 of which 727 were Early Head Start grantees/delegates, 1,787 Head Start (preschool) grantees/delegates and 60 migrant/seasonal…

Federal agencies and offices have important and exciting early childhood efforts underway. Staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and within it, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF)--which manages both the Child Care and Development Fund and the Head Start program, among other initiatives--and the U.S.…

In the past, collaboration between universities and high schools has been limited to placing student teachers in a classroom to get acclimated to the teaching environment. Saint Xavier University wanted education students to develop their teaching skills in a deeper manner. A nearby high school, with many students from immigrant families, also had…

The massive flow of federal funding into schools has created a new and unfamiliar political dynamic in state elections this fall, with many candidates voicing concerns about the government involvement while acknowledging its role in saving jobs, propping up budgets, and supporting innovations in education. State elected officials have a long…

This paper investigates how accountability pressures under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may affect children's rate of overweight. Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children's health. For example, schools may cut back on recess and physical…

To encourage individuals to enter and remain in the teaching profession, the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program grants loan forgiveness of up to $17,500 for teachers in certain specialties, and up to $5,000 for other teachers who teach for five years in low-income schools and meet other requirements. This brochure provides information about how…

In 2009-10, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction was approved to include a five-year graduation rate as well as a four-year rate in determining if schools, districts, and the state made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the NCLB Act. This rate was based on the incoming 9th grade students of 2005-06. The denominator of the cohort…

This report responds to the legislative requirement of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L.110-246) to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Direct certification is a process conducted by the States and by local…

The study is based on a secondary analysis of data from the 3rd year of the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP), a federally funded research project that examines how kindergarten students learn science in inquiry settings (Mantzicopoulos, Patrick, & Samarapungavan, 2005). Videotapes of classroom lessons implemented as part of the Year 3…

In the winter of 2009, with more than 1.4 million job losses in the first two months of the year, the federal government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law as a way to quickly inject liquidity into a stalling economy and maintain critical services that would allow individuals and communities to survive through the…

The conclusion of the 2010-11 school year will mark nine plus years since enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Throughout this period, numerous states--sometimes almost every one--have annually sought to amend the educational accountability systems they first developed as "workbooks" in 2002-03, consistent with the…