In this hearing on the District of Columbia's public school system (DCPS), the Honorable Tom Davis, chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, says in his opening statement that the District's improved health cannot be sustained without a better public school system, and that the lack of performance improvement threatens future growth and…

This study sought to determine why some families live outside the government cash income support system despite extreme poverty. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 95 extremely poor families (cash income below 50 percent of the federal poverty level living without employment income or government cash assistance). The interview sample was…

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds a 5-year program supporting the start-up of new small high schools of no more than 400 students and the conversion of larger high schools into smaller, more personalized schools or learning communities. This report focuses on the program's first year and compares new small schools, large high schools…

The central need in education is to recognize that many of the gains in pupil achievement, as measured in test scores, may not be sustainable if educators continue to be fixated on short-term outcomes and plans. This paper addresses the key concerns of how educators sustain and develop schools through the deployment of effective planning…

Early Head Start (EHS) is a comprehensive, two-generation program providing intensive services from before birth to age 3 to promote improved outcomes in children's development, family development, staff development, and community development. The second of a 3-volume series designed to share the experiences of the 17 EHS programs participating in…

This theoretical paper explores the nature of narrative by examining its key characteristics as a communication tool and an independent mode of thought in the form of a literature review. The first section describes stories or narrative. The second section establishes links between narrative, change, and learning through the concept of…

This action research project implemented and evaluated a program for improving social development of elementary school students in order to lessen disruptive behavior in physical education class. The targeted population consisted of elementary school children in second, fourth, and fifth grades in a growing rural, middle class community. Anecdotal…

This manual contains information about social skills and self-advocacy and provides strategies for teaching these skills to adults with disabilities who may need to act as their own advocates for accommodation in a variety of settings, including work and education. This strategy is cued by the acronym TARGET, which stands for the following steps:…

This paper argues that present institutional settings in rural Australia are inadequate for bringing about a culture that is fair and inclusive. A vision for rural Australia based predominantly on a market economy and its attendant policies and institutions allows the "means" (the market) to determine the ends and may lead to an…

This guide looks at implementation of principles of inclusive schools from the perspectives of parents, teachers, district and school administrators, and policymakers and is based on data from interviews, surveys, and focus groups. Each perspective is represented in a different chapter of the report, with implications or recommendations for the…

This report takes a global look at the structural changes taking place in the 72 small schools that were created from 17 comprehensive high schools in Washington State. It also discusses the challenges conversion schools face when they operate with a foot in two worlds -- trying to realize the benefits of small while, in many ways, still operating…

In this project a product to aid educational leaders in the process of communicating in crisis situations is presented. The product was created and received a formative evaluation using an educational research and development methodology. Ultimately, an administrative training course that utilized an Image Repair Situational Theory was developed.…

This action research project evaluated an intervention to improve primary, intermediate, and special education student responsibility in a middle class community located near a metropolitan area in northeastern Illinois. Participating were students in first grade, fourth grade, and communication development classes. Lack of student responsibility…

The current status of diversity initiatives in eight U.S.-based multinational corporations was examined through a process involving semistructured interviews of diversity managers and analysis of their annual reports for fiscal 1996 and related documents. The 8 corporations were randomly selected from the 30 multinational corporations in Illinois.…

Efforts to shift women from welfare into the labor market will not necessarily move women out of poverty because the wages they are likely to earn are so low. According to research tracking Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients over a 2-year period, 43% of AFDC recipients combine welfare with a substantial amount of paid…