We examined the associations between preschool attendance and academic school readiness at kindergarten entry among 5-year-old children of immigrant mothers in the United States using data from a US nationally representative sample (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, N = 1650). Comparing children who were in preschool (Head Start,…

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between mothers' self-efficacy beliefs, their preschool children's home learning environments, and literacy skills. A sample of 112 mother-child dyads was recruited from Head Start centers in rural and urban communities. The measures included maternal self-efficacy and maternal perceptions of…

Where students go to college, not just whether they go, may be important to their educational and career success. Yet half of high school students from disadvantaged families "undermatch"--they do not enroll in college at all or not at the most selective college they could. The U.S. Department of Education tested a set of promising,…

As college costs continue to increase, more and more Americans rely on federal student financial assistance programs to help pay for their postsecondary education. Despite the demonstrable and continually increasing importance of federal student aid, the majority of Americans have little knowledge of the Title IV programs or the processes…

This paper examines the effect of a federally supported school turnaround program in North Carolina elementary and middle schools. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the turnaround program did not improve, and may have reduced, average school-level passing rates in math and reading. One potential contributor to that finding…

Is income during children's earliest years a key determinant of long-term child and adult success in the longer run? The research to date, Christopher Wimer and Sharon Wolf write, suggests that it is. Wimer and Wolf review substantial descriptive evidence that income can enhance child development and later adult outcomes, and that it does so most…

In the United States, adult and workforce education (AE) seems to be located, simultaneously, both everywhere and nowhere in particular. Ongoing shifts in national economic demands and changes in requirements for training and education have brought learning in the adult years into the federal public policy arena. Sometimes referred to as lifelong…

Language teacher identity has been studied in several contexts in English Language Teaching (ELT) field; however, looking at language teacher identity in a United States context in which teachers from other countries teach their native languages as a foreign language has been a rare topic so far. Therefore, this phenomenological qualitative study…

The 10th anniversary of Common Core's launch offers the opportunity to take stock of the impact these nearly national standards have had on student learning, as well as their future prospects. In this article, Morgan Polikoff shares his view that the standards movement in general, and Common Core in particular, have achieved all they are going to…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a signature federal program that in FY2019 provided financial assistance to 35 million low-income Americans. SNAP is a focused program that increases food access, reduces hunger, and improves the nutrition and health of low-income American families. It is in the interest of the nation and…

In accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports annually on the most serious management and performance challenges the Department faces. OIG's reports include a brief assessment of the Department's progress in addressing the challenges. They also identify further actions that, if properly…

The Head Start Act mandates that each Head Start grantee receive a monitoring review at least once every 3 years; each newly designated grantee be reviewed after the completion of its first year (and then at least once every 3 years thereafter); and all grantees that "fail to meet the standards" receive Follow-up reviews. Reviewers…

Today we look to determine teaching quality through a combination of observation, surveys, and test scores. These measures fail to answer the most important question about quality teaching: How is it accomplished? How has this teacher used questioning today, and what drove their decision to do so? How has this teacher structured independent…

Safety net programs emerging from the War on Poverty and later antipoverty efforts such as Head Start, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), among others have reduced poverty, and strengthened longer-term outcomes for poor children, leading to better health and greater economic…

This article explores Head Start's overall effectiveness in improving school readiness outcomes and its potential to reduce gaps in these outcomes in light of changing program goals, resource and funding capacity, and the demographic changes in the low-income child population it serves. Although not an explicit goal of the Head Start program, we…