NGSS Early Implementers is a six-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Administrators need learning opportunities if they are to adequately understand the substantial shifts of the Next…

This report seeks to raise awareness of the critical importance of chronic early absence, synthesize available data on the scope of the challenge, and share emerging insights about how schools and communities can use chronic early absence to identify and address challenges affecting the social, educational and physical well-being of children and…

This report highlights the various strategies used to relate cooperative education (CE) work experience to students' academic programs by profiling 17 colleges and universities that are members of the National Commission for Cooperative Education's College Partner Program. Each profile includes a brief statement from the institution's president;…

This address was presented to a conference celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of The United Way's "Success By 6" early childhood development initiative. The address acknowledges that the American public education system has traditionally operated on the assumption that children enter kindergarten at approximately the same educational…

This paper chronicles the effort of a curriculum development team to alter the high school social studies curriculum, its content, and instructional methods. Specifically, Entrepreneur/Economic Education (E-3) is the focus of this curriculum reform effort. The E-3 program is designed as a four-year cooperative effort involving selected teachers,…

The California Partnership Academies Program is a highly successful school/business collaboration that allows students who are at risk of not graduating from high school to see clearly the connection between school and the workplace. The following key components are discussed: (1) an at-risk student population made up largely of the educationally…

The subject of this hearing was the partnership between the District of Columbia's public schools and several private companies. This partnership resulted in the establishment of a school curriculum giving high school students exposure to specific career training and also orientation to the workplace. The training was in the fields of…

As part of a series of reports designed to support the implementation of Proposition 10: The California Children and Families Act and to provide comprehensive and authoritative information on critical issues concerning young children and families in California, this report reviews the research about early childhood brain development, examines the…

Effective schools provide at-risk students with a community of support that encourages school membership and educational engagement. This study describes effective dropout prevention programs, develops a generalizable, theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between at-risk students and their schools, and suggests local and state…

This report presents results of a process analysis that describes and documents Job Corps services and operations. Chapter one provides overviews of Job Corps, the national Job Corps study, and the process analysis. Chapter two describes the administrative structure of Job Corps and presents data on the geographic distribution and characteristics…

This book argues that many U.S. children are at risk because of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, poor health, illiteracy, racial prejudice, and the eruption of unprecedented levels of violence both in inner cities and across the country. It provides a comprehensive overview of the crises young children and adolescents face and the decisions that…

This document reviews programs and policy initiatives in the following Northwestern States aimed at reducing the number of youth who are at risk of dropping out of school or remaining unemployed: (1) Alaska; (2) Hawaii; (3) Idaho; (4) Montana; (5) Oregon; and (6) Washington. The following regional trends are identified: (1) establishing…