This annual report details the accomplishments of the Alaska Head Start Program for fiscal year 1998. The report begins with a graphic presentation of the locations of Alaska Head Start programs and a table delineating the administrative and program partners of Head Start, its service population, eligibility requirements, funding sources, service…

This congressional hearing focuses on a General Accounting Office (GAO) examination of the Department of Labor's management of Job Corps recruitment and placement contractors. Its focuses are how the contractors demand and measure success in two of the four strategy areas--client commitment and client placement in a job with long-term…

Considering 61 reading tutoring programs established in response to the "America Reads Challenge," this publication encourages all Americans to collaborate with classroom teachers and parents so that every child can read well and independently by the third grade. It discusses ways to build effective partnerships among the community, and…

This book makes extensive use of photographs to document successful community-based family support programs that enable families and their children to overcome cycles of poverty, drugs, and violence. The book begins with an essay by Roger Rosenblatt discussing the history of childhood in America and the growth of community-based programs; the…

Noting that the past decade has seen a rapid increase in the number of out-of-school time and community school initiatives and that finding funding for these initiatives remains a challenge to their success, this strategy brief discusses the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) as an important long-term source of funding. The brief provides an…

This annual report is the first to detail the services and achievements of Alaska's Division of Early Development. The report begins with a letter from the state's Department of Education Commissioner and a description of the Division, formed in 1999 to strengthen the ring of services for young children and their families in Alaska. The remainder…

The U.S. Department of Education developed the Gender Equity Expert Panel to identify promising and exemplary programs that promote gender equity in and through education. This panel of experts reviewed self-nominated programs to determine whether they met four criteria: evidence of success/effectiveness in promoting gender equity; quality of the…

The Summer Opportunity To Accelerate Reading (S.O.A.R.) program is the elementary summer school program to improve reading and literacy in the Austin Independent School District, Texas. In June 2000, the 21-day program served 2,406 students in grades 1 through 3 who were below grade level in reading or at risk of retention. The budget allocation…

Noting that out-of-school time and community school initiatives are operating in a rapidly changing policy context and that tobacco settlement funds provide a flexible, significant inflow of new state revenue, this strategy brief provides policymakers, community leaders, and program developers with background information on the tobacco settlement…

This volume is part of a series of Idea Books for school-based practitioners who are implementing federal compensatory-education programs. It demonstrates how educators and their supporting communities are implementing a new vision of comprehensive school reform using the schoolwide program option available under the 1994 reauthorization of the…

This report details a case study of the Tutor-Mentor Connection (T/MC), an organization designed to build infrastructures to expand and improve after-school tutoring and mentoring opportunities for inner-city children in Chicago. The case study was conducted over a 3-month period in 1997 and was intended as a limited exploration of one model for…

This report by the U.S. Department of Education highlights the benefits of the Class-Size Reduction program that was passed by Congress in 1998. Prior to this federal program, more than 85 percent of students were in classes with over 18 children. However, 1 year after its inception, the program enabled 1.7 million young children to learn in…

The Principals' Academy, associated with the Success for All Children Initiative, grew out of the work and interest of participating superintendents. The initiative was designed to help members of the Forum for the American School Superintendent enhance their advocacy for children by addressing communitywide changes needed to ensure children's…

The Summer Opportunity To Accelerate Reading (S.O.A.R.) program is the Title I elementary summer school of the Austin Independent School District (AISD), Texas. The S.O.A.R. program provides early intervention to accelerate literacy learning for students entering grades 1-3 who are at risk of retention or are below grade level. In its second year…

This report describes the Roots & Wings (R&W) program. It presents the research on R&W carried out to date and discusses R&W's impact on research, development, and evaluation for school reform in general. The program is an extension of the Success for All whole-school reform model. R&W took the existing reading, writing,…