Recent expansion of media coverage of early childhood issues and increased funding for early childhood programs are due in part to deliberate efforts to increase public engagement in efforts to improve the lives of young children and their families. This brief describes recent early childhood public engagement efforts and outlines lessons for…

This paper addresses how community colleges should effect multidimensional, dynamic, and rapid change. It describes a three-stage paradigm of educational transition: (1) organizations cannot be changed by imposing an external model; (2) there is no objective reality outside an organization's culture; and (3) dynamic change is the result of…

The Children's Aid Society (CAS), one of the country's oldest and largest non-sectarian child and family welfare agencies, has 37 sites in New York with an annual operating budget of over $60 million. This annual report highlights the activities of the organization for the 2001 fiscal year and presents information on the work of CAS to complete…

In 1996, the Pew Charitable Trusts gave 4-year grants to seven urban school districts to help implement standards-based systemic reform. Several times each year, researchers conducted interviews to track progress in their reform efforts. This report synthesizes findings across all 4 years of the Pew Network. Overall, Network sites worked hard to…

Recognizing that social service agencies need to work in partnership with families for children's safety and well-being, this booklet addresses some common barriers faced by local, state, and national attempts at parent engagement by describing practical strategies for successful shared leadership. From examples of how incremental changes in…

For its sixth national conference, a national collaboration in support of school reform sharpened its focus by asking Houston Independent School District (HISD) to host the conference and serve as a "case study." HISD was an ideal subject because of a long history of addressing statewide standards-based reform and engaging in multiple…

This report provides an analysis of a 2-year study of 12 urban public schools in Canada. The purpose of the study was to examine the inner workings of secondary schools in low-income settings that create high achievement for their students. The schools were selected on the basis of their achievement on provincial, school-leaving examinations and…

This digest addresses city and state takeover as a school reform strategy, outlining the emergence of takeover in the past decade, discussing promises and limitations that takeover offers, and synthesizing the research to date on takeover's effectiveness. A notable trend over the past decade is greater implementation of takeover reforms,…

Noting that the population of foster children who "age out" of the foster care system may be even more at risk than other foster children, this research brief summarizes a longer report examining trends in foster care in the United States, the number and needs of those aging out of the system, and public policy implications. The brief indicates…

The nine papers included in this book are: "The Why, What and How of Educational Reform in Japan" (Roger Goodman); "Why Reform Japanese Education?" (William K. Cummings); "Destruction and Reconstruction: A Comparative Analysis of the Education Reform in Japan and Germany under the U.S. Military Occupation After World War…

This report explores the insights and experiences of activists who build strong constituencies to reform public schools. It presents data from a 2-year study involving the seven primary constituency and coalition building grantees of the Ford Foundation's Constituency Building for Public School Reform Initiative. Data were collected from 14…

This final report describes the activities and accomplishments of the Consortium on Inclusive Schooling Practices, a federally-funded 5-year project to investigate the utility of a systemic approach for building the capacity of state and local education agencies to provide inclusive educational services. The project focused on four states…

This paper suggests ways of incorporating parent involvement in the elementary school classroom and at home, and presents the findings of a survey study examining how teachers in a New York City school in the Bronx perceived the influences of parental involvement on the development of children's literacy skills. Following introductory remarks, the…

This report describes the degree and nature of hardship among low-income and poor working and nonworking families in a nationally representative sample of kindergartners--the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Cohort). Five hardship indicators were examined: (1) lack of child health insurance; (2) child has not seen doctor at least…

This report profiles the state departments of education (SEAs) in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, and North Dakota. These SEAs reported in 1996 that they had changed from a departmental structure (e.g., separate units for special education), into cross-cutting teams in the previous five years. Findings indicate that since…