This article reports on new findings from a forthcoming research review which analyzes 207 studies of school-based programs designed to foster children's social and emotional skills. Roger P. Weissberg, the president of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, the Chicago-based group that sponsored the four-year study, says findings show that these programs help improve academics. The results come at what some see as a critical juncture in the movement to promote social and emotional learning. Research findings in education and other fields, such as brain science, seem to be converging on the benefits of such instruction, and programs based on the concept have a small but growing presence in schools. Some advocates of social and emotional learning contend that one roadblock to more widespread implementation of their programs is the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which has put new pressure on schools to raise test scores in core subjects and narrowed the curricular focus in some schools. But the nearly 6-year-old law also calls on educators to employ "scientifically based" educational practices, and leaders of the movement for social and emotional learning hope the new findings will give their programs a more solid footing in schools nationwide.