Across the United States, policy makers and early childhood experts are focusing on implementing and evaluating a range of interventions designed to improve school readiness for young children living in poverty. This article provides an overview of the various factors that threaten optimal development of young children living in poverty and that…

A growing set of research projects in science education are working from the assumption that science literacy can be constituted as being centrally focused on issues of social justice for the youth and for communities involved in such work (Calabrese Barton, 2003). Despite well-established links among race, class, and exposure to environmental…

Nationally, the shortage of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the schools is growing. As such, it is important to understand factors related to the retention of SLPs in this setting. This study expanded on previous research by examining a wider range of factors that may be related to the retention of SLPs including caseload size, workload…

Due to the increased importance and usage of self-managed virtual teams, many recent studies have examined factors that affect their success. One such factor that merits examination is the configuration or composition of virtual teams. This article tackles this point by (1) empirically testing trait-configuration effects on virtual team…

Wireless communications are ubiquitous. Students and teachers use iPhones[R], BlackBerrys[R], and other smart phones at home and at work. More than 275 million Americans had cell phones in June of 2009 and expanded access to broadband is predicted this year. Despite the plethora of users, most students and teachers do not understand "how they…

After earlier plans fell out of favor, pay for performance plans are becoming more popular. Factors that make those plans more viable include new data systems and ways to measure performance, increased attention on the importance of effective teaching, the need for efficiencies in salary schedules during tough economic conditions, and a change in…

This large mixed methods study investigated the effects of the introductory second language acquisition (SLA) course on the beliefs of pre-service teachers (n = 381) enrolled over a three-year period at a state university in California. Pre- to post-course paired sample t-tests that were run on 23 beliefs statements from a widely used survey…

Online learning has changed education in many ways. This change was not mandated, but instead filled a need expressed by students. A problem with this shift toward online teaching is that it has happened randomly and irregularly within K-12 systems. Demands from students for online learning at both K-12 and higher education levels have not always…

This article presents the findings of a secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 that explored the predictive association between training in access technology and performance on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Academic Achievement: III. The results indicated that the use of access technology had a limited predictive…

This paper reports on a comprehensive evaluation of the Advance programme by Victoria University in 2007/08. Advance is a flexible school-based programme for young people to volunteer or implement a project of benefit to their communities in the state of Victoria, in Australia. It is a partnership between the Office for Youth, Victorian government…

This guide, which is one of a series of three guides designed to provide state and local leaders, policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders with information about the work-based learning component of the School to Work Opportunities Act, deals with occupational education. The introduction traces the history of school-to-work initiatives,…

The five matrices in this volume are designed to assist states in coordinating their Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) programs. The matrices, each organized around a theme, summarize key elements of a variety of federal programs. Matrix A features the main programs of human services, labor, and education agencies that are most critical to…

Political changes underway at both the federal and state levels will dramatically affect public policies for children and their families in the years ahead. Drawing from over 550 budget line items in 10 state departments from 1990 to 1995, this report looks at spending on Illinois' children and families by program areas, with some specific…

Ireland's program of specific skills training (SST) Objective 1 courses, which are designed to train/retrain the labor force required for implementation of Ireland's Industry and Services Operational Programme, was evaluated by analyzing program expenditure reports and participant profiles, surveying a random sample of 101 employers, and visiting…

Even Start is a family-centered national literacy program whose goal is to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy by expanding the educational opportunities available to low-income families with limited educational experiences. To reach this goal, all Even Start projects provide services in each of three core areas: adult education, parenting…