Since the run-up to the 2008 election, the Democratic Party has been home to two prominent and very different reform wings. One, spearheaded by the group Democrats for Education Reform and notable school-district chiefs like New York's Joel Klein and Washington, D.C.'s Michelle Rhee, is the Education Equality Project (EEP). The other, A Broader,…

As a result of chronic poverty many people in South Asia experience poor quality schooling, interrupted schooling, or no schooling at all. People affected by poverty face multiple constraints on wellbeing, which typically include informal employment, low wages and poor health. In such contexts the benefits and, more specifically, the…

This longitudinal qualitative study examines the process adolescents undertake as they socially construct their career ideations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cross-section of 60 adolescents living in economically disadvantaged urban and rural communities twice a year from seventh through the twelfth grade. Using constructivist…

This article argues that a commonly neglected dimension in service-learning pedagogy is the consideration of community perspectives in developing these service-learning projects. Areas considered in this study were: (1) Community members' needs and problems, (2) Community members' perceived roles and participation, and (3) Community members'…

Poverty is a dehumanising condition for every one. It erodes human rights of the affected whether women or men. Poverty subjects an individual to a state of powerlessness, hopelessness, and lack of self-esteem, confidence, and integrity, leading to a situation of multidimensional vulnerability. Poverty has a gender dimension since women and men…

This fourth annual update on America's high school dropout crisis shows that for the first time the nation is on track to meet the goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate by the Class of 2020--if the pace of improvement from 2006 to 2010 is sustained over the next 10 years. The greatest gains have occurred for the students of color and…

Fingertip Facts is a compendium of some of the most frequently requested data sets from the Utah State Office of Education. Data sets in this year's Fingertip Facts include: Core CRT Language Arts Testing, 2012; Core CRT Mathematics Testing, 2012; 2012 Public Education General Fund; 2011-2012 Enrollment Demographics; Public Schools by Grade Level,…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a rapidly expanding network of public charter schools whose mission is to improve the education of low-income children. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 125 KIPP schools are in operation in 20 different states and the District of Columbia (DC). Ultimately, KIPP's goal is to prepare students to enroll and…

Targeted educational voucher schemes [TEVS] are often proposed for poor children in developing countries. This article explores the design of an effective TEVS using three policy instruments: regulation, support services, and finance. The regulation design addresses the rules that must be adhered to by participating households, children, and…

Double-shift schooling has been implemented in Mexico for several decades as a strategy to achieve universal access to basic education. This study provides evidence on the existence of social inequalities related to the implementation of this schooling model. Using quantitative data from several databases including the National Census, the…

While significant attention has been paid to Wall Street investors and families impacted by the current subprime mortgage crisis in the USA, the lives of Sesame Street are minimally discussed. Children and their families are enduring a variety of consequences of foreclosures. The consequences can be hugely disruptive to the approximately 2 million…

Using family resilience and ecological theories, we examine the relationship between partner work-required travel separations and spouse psychological well-being. The study examines the role of work-organization-provided supports for families and of informal support networks, including marital satisfaction, as factors that can reduce the risks for…

In two studies dissociations between reading and spelling skills were examined. Study 1 reports equally high prevalence rates for isolated deficits in reading (7%) or spelling (6%) in a representative sample (N = 2,029) of German-speaking elementary school children. In Study 2, children with isolated deficits were presented with the same words to…

It is well established that working memory is related to reading comprehension ability. However, its role in explaining specific reading comprehension difficulties is still under debate: the issue mainly concerns whether the contribution of working memory is dependent on task modality (verbal tasks being more predictive than visuo-spatial tasks)…

This study estimates the individual and combined effects of selected family, student and school characteristics on the academic achievement of poor, urban primary-school students in the Turkish context. Participants of the study consisted of 719 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade primary-school students from 23 schools in inner and outer city…