The importance of parent participation in a child's education is undisputed, and low-income urban parents can and want to help with their children's schooling, both at home and at school, as much as do middle class parents. However, most poor urban children live in single-parent, female-headed households--often Black or Hispanic--and many school…

The Atlanta (Georgia) Public School System (APS) has many existing dropout prevention programs, but they have been operating primarily independently, with limited information sharing or coordination. In 1986 these programs were linked through the formation of the Atlanta Dropout Prevention Collaborative, which unites the public school system with…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 18 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) predicting kindergarten children's success with specific reading methods using group readiness tests; (2) the types of discourse included in basal reading…

Strategies for devising primary grade academic learning activities that promote cultural diversity are provided. Based on the responsive multicultural basic skills (RMBS) approach, the strategies emphasize skill development, incorporate content from a diversity of cultural groups into all parts of the curriculum, and provide each child with…

This paper outlines the types of schooling programs that will build on the strengths of educationally disadvantaged students to bring them into the educational mainstream as well as to prepare them for economic, political, and social participation. Without intervention on behalf of the disadvantaged, the following results may occur: (1) a dual…

This pamphlet chronicles the study of Kirsty Arrondelle, an 11-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, focusing on her attendance at a local infants school in Berkshire (England), her later acceptance at a primary school in Hertfordshire, and her preparation for transfer to secondary school. It details the struggle of Kirsty's parents to have her…

The 1986-87 Compensatory Language Experiences and Reading Program (CLEAR) of the Columbus, Ohio Public Schools was implemented to provide assistance to selected underachieving pupils in grades one through eight so that they might attain more fully their potential for and improvement in language and reading skills. The program featured individual…

The 1981 Nutrition and Education Training Program described in this report is a continuation of activities begun in 1979 in the Baltimore, Maryland public schools. In 1981, the project integrated the objectives and learning activities developed during 1979 and 1980 into elementary and secondary education health, home economics, and science…

To assist state policy makers, six papers and five brief reactions discuss the elementary and secondary educational needs and expectations of six minority groups: blacks, Mexican Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, American Indians and Native Alaskans, and Asians and Pacific Islanders. An introductory summary notes that the educational needs usually…

The New York City Russian Bilingual Program is described in this report. As implemented in 1980-81, the program provided instruction in English as a second language, native language arts, reading, and bilingual mathematics, science, social studies, and other subject areas to approximately 700 Russian-dominant students of limited English…

Investigated in this study are the school sorting process (how students are matched with schools, courses, and teachers) and the possible positive effects of mandating that schools disclose how this process occurs. After an introduction, chapters 2 and 3 present findings about the sorting practices in seven California school districts. It was…

Key research in the literature on the relationship between parent participation and achievement is discussed, participation being defined in terms of activities both within and outside of the school. The research resists generalization because of the range of potential parent activities and the uncertainty about what they convey, but yields the…

The Language School in Seattle has conducted extracurricular foreign language classes in 31 local elementary schools for several years. Each school has a parent coordinator, the courses are tuition-supported, and the objectives are to establish language learning interest and cultural awareness using the Total Physical Response method. A dramatic…

A comparison of the salient characteristics of Canadian and United States bilingual education programs suggests various settings where it would be desirable to introduce children to schooling in their home language. These settings include: (1) the various ethnic communities in the United States, (2) multilingual developing countries, (3) parts of…

This document outlines a comprehensive plan developed by the Minnesota State Department of Education for improving school effectiveness throughout the state. The first four sections of the paper present prefatory material, including a general introduction, current comparative statistics on Minnesota schools, need statements (state legislation…