This study evaluates the initial effect of Washington, DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) on the academic performance of public schools and its effects on the opportunities that District students have to attend integrated schools. The OSP is a federally sponsored school voucher program that provides vouchers worth up to $7,500 for an…

We review what is known about Head Start's impacts on children and argue that the program is likely to generate benefits to participants and society as a whole that are larger than program costs. Our conclusions differ from those in some previous reviews because we use a more appropriate standard to judge program effectiveness (benefit-cost…

The Academic Competitiveness Council (ACC) is responsible for reviewing the effectiveness of existing federally funded Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs, and for improving the state of STEM education in the United States. To this end, it has conducted a review of program evaluations submitted by 115 STEM programs. The…

The U.S. Department of Education's Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention publishes "Catalyst," a newsletter covering current Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence (AODV) prevention issues at institutions of higher education. "Catalyst" discusses emerging issues and highlights…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a parent education program on parents' awareness about the Independent Autistic Children Education Centre (ACEC: in Turkish OCEM). The program was offered through a distance education program. Participants of the study included parents of 72 children with autism who were receiving…

This report is the first of several to come from CASEL's major meta-analysis project. The report describes the strong positive effects after-school programs can have, and the conditions needed to realize these benefits. A meta-analysis to evaluate the magnitude of effects obtained from 73 programs was conducted. Outcomes were examined in three…

This fact sheet summarizes a study that examined how schools in the U.S. Gulf Coast region perceived the mental health needs of students after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and how schools responded. According to the report, despite strong initial efforts to support the mental health needs of students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) helps museums and libraries preserve our cultural heritage, enhance learning and innovation, and develop staff capacities to provide the best in service to our communities. IMLS has a long-standing commitment to funding grants and sponsoring research on the subject of how both preschool and…

The purpose of this Guide is to provide education officials, program providers, and others seeking to sponsor a rigorous program evaluation with practical advice on finding a capable evaluator. More specifically, this Guide offers practical advice on finding an evaluator to conduct a rigorous evaluation to measure the effect of an educational…

Inverness Research Associates served as external evaluators for the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) from its inception in 2002 as a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Center for Learning and Teaching. One of the programs that CILS developed was the Informal Learning Certificate (ILC) for informal science educators (mostly…

This experiment was conducted to test the predictions of two behavioral-economic approaches to quantifying relative reinforcer efficacy. The normalized demand analysis suggests that characteristics of averaged normalized demand curves may be used to predict progressive-ratio breakpoints and peak responding. By contrast, the demand analysis holds…

Reading Recovery, a popular one-to-one tutoring program that Bush administration officials sought to shut out of a high-profile federal reading program, has gotten a rare thumbs-up from the federal What Works Clearinghouse. The positive rating comes after prominent researchers and federal reading officials tried to dissuade states and districts…

This paper challenges the assumptions that women "care" as a matter of course, that care work is natural, inevitable, and easy--requiring little skill and as a result should not be highly valued or rewarded. It does so by assessing the impact of Quebec's (Canada's) $7/day childcare program on an economically disadvantaged community near…

In this article, the authors describe a group of committed people called the Our Kids Network in the Regional Municipality of Halton, in Ontario, Canada, which was given the opportunity to create a positive, future-oriented vision for the children in their community, and detail how it is making its vision for children a reality. The Halton Our…

This study examines the role of living-learning (L/L) programs in facilitating first-generation students' perceived academic and social transition to college. Using a sample of 1,335 first-generation students from 33 4-year institutions who participated in the National Study of Living-Learning Programs during Spring 2004, the results of the study…