An interview with the new chairman of the national Endowment for the Humanities. (HS)

Reviews book about the accomplishments of the Economic Opportunity Act during its first four years of operation from 1964-1969. (BC)

Provides sources of information about apprenticeships, including the addresses of the state employment services. (BH)

Discusses good and bad points of the programs of the Educational Personnel Development Grants and notes problems of evaluating reading programs. (MD)

Describes key provisions of two recent federal program for rural schools: The Rural and Small Schools Achievement Program for rural districts with fewer than 600 students and the Rural and Low Income School Program for larger, high-poverty rural districts. (PKP)

A study of AmeriCorps programs in four western states found the federally funded corporation is accomplishing its objective to operate in a nonpartisan, politically neutral manner. AmeriCorps participation significantly increased community involvement, with no differences by gender, race, or political orientation. (Contains 81 references.) (JOW)

A framework of general evaluation criteria for ensuring the comprehensiveness of program reviews and appropriate and fair comparison of children's programs is outlined. It has two components: (1) descriptive; and (2) evaluative. The framework was developed by researchers at the General Accounting Office for evaluation of federal programs. (TJH)

Describes the programs of the Corporation for National Service such as Senior Service Corps, Learn and Serve America, AmeriCorps, Foster Grandparents, Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, and Seniors for Schools. (JOW)

Research demonstrates that being well-fed is an important first step toward children's achievement. Nutrition programs are cost-effective interventions that can help children learn and grow. Local agencies can offer children meals and snacks through several federal nutrition programs (e.g., Summer Food Service Program, Child and Adult Care Food…

In this paper the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, a top-down, one-size-fits-all coercive nostrum constructed by politicians purportedly to improve all American public schools that piddles with symptoms rather than deal with root causes, is first delineated and analyzed. Its departure from local educational governance to an accountability-focused…

This brief shares the latest research on the effects of social and emotional learning (SEL) on students and includes strategies for implementing SEL. It explains how SEL works, elaborates on how SEL can be an integrative prevention framework that addresses the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) core elements, and spells out implications of the…

Despite a decade of simplification efforts, students and families are often still baffled by the student aid process and cringe at the sight of financial aid application forms. Contrary to its purpose of helping students to access college, the student aid application process causes families frustration and confusion that has been cited as an…

If the resort city of Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland and its "imagineers," marked a departure from the urban reality of the typical American Library Association (ALA) annual conference, it was impossible, at this 2008 meeting, to avoid urgent library issues. How do libraries maintain their value and cultural presence as users…

The largest issue for schools is not extending the school day or year--as useful as those policies might be--but of meeting time requirements within the constraints of the budgets and personnel given them. Policy makers rarely understand how their policies impact practice. Author Marilyn Crawford suggests a policy-talks-to-practice strategy that…