The federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, project strives to equalize low-income students' access to higher education by increasing their participation in rigorous coursework, providing expanded opportunities for low-income students and parents to learn about postsecondary educational opportunities…

In December 1994 the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty published an analysis of antihomeless laws and policies in 42 American cities. This report draws on those findings to focus on attempts to shut down or exclude service providers. Searches of the media, telephone interviews with service providers and public interest groups and…

During the 20th century, the involvement of communities in education has deteriorated, and the school and the community have evolved into separate worlds. This chapter describes ways in which a typical high school has increased its interactions with its own community. Those interactions have two dimensions: to bring the community into the school…

A 1960 study found that one-teacher schools numbered 24,000; were outmoded, poorly financed, and of inferior construction; and had inadequately prepared teachers. In the early 1980s, a study of these schools found that their facilities were updated, most teachers were college trained and state certified, and the students performed well at school…

The concept of vision is necessary to keep school improvement on track. This paper describes the efforts of two school districts to develop their school-district visions through a collaborative vision-building process. Each district--the Dekalb School District in northeastern Texas and the Altus School District in southwestern Oklahoma--began the…

This paper examines ideas about school scheduling and student learning. It also offers suggestions for schools that are considering the adoption of alternative school calendars. It describes a case study in which a progressive school district modified its school calendar in order to improve instructional opportunities for student learning. The…

Total Quality Management (TQM) promotes a long-term, strategic look at organizations; by extension, Total Quality Education (TQE) promotes an essential, strategic view of communities, educational provisions, and children. This book discusses applying the TQM approach, which focuses on long-term quality, to a TQE, communitywide focus. The emphasis…

In rural coastal communities, trade-offs between conserving and developing environmentally sensitive resources are acute. At the community level, part-time volunteers and citizen officials are asked to make complex decisions based on ambiguous and frequently contradictory "scientific" evidence of economic and environmental relationships.…

Collaboration as an effective means for developing resiliency in children is examined in this document. The first section summarizes findings of literature on collaboration to develop a new paradigm based on the following features: obtaining community ownership; developing and utilizing people's strengths; and actively engaging children.…

This manual is intended to help rural officials solve community problems. In defining local needs, rural officials should pick a winning issue, enlist community support, make certain of local authority to pursue the project, and build local credibility by demonstrating good government management. Officials can marshall resources by joining forces…

The Office of Educational Leadership (OEL) of the Minnesota State Department of Education initiated a project to develop and examine the effects of processes designed to transform schools into structures that assure that all students learn. In September 1989, 10 Research and Development (R&D) project sites received grants from the OEL. The…

A challenge for the 1990s is the implementation of prevention strategies that strengthen protective factors in families, schools, and communities. Protective factors refer to positive action strategies that build resiliency in youth. After a brief overview of protection factor research, the major protective factors that contribute to the…

Education is important because it directly affects our social quality of life, individual opportunities, national economic competitiveness, and other dimensions of life. Unfortunately, the true value of education is often only recognized by its absence. Although economic competitiveness is only one byproduct of national education quality, it does…

The Take Pride in America (TPIA) school program encourages volunteer stewardship programs to help protect, enhance, and manage public lands such as school sites, forests, parks, water reservoirs, historical sites, fish and wildlife areas, public nature preserves, and wilderness areas in the United States. From this program an educational guide and…

This manual, developed by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, is intended to help concerned community members make school health education a reality. It provides suggestions on how to get people organized to take the right steps. The manual's suggestions are based on three statements. First, health education means teaching people…