This issue of "The Progress of Education Reform" will address the following three questions: (1) What are the challenges that developmental education programs face that affect their success? (2) Are developmental education programs an effective strategy for increasing college attainment rates? and (3) How can state policy improve the…

The costly supplemental or alternative programs that combat chronic school failure and continued high dropout rates are not always effective for the following reasons: (1) students do not always find out which programs are available, and (2) if no suitable program is available, there is usually no one responsible for trying to create one. People…

The Army's Basic Skills Education Program (BSEP) was studied to consider whether it was properly designed to determine the basic skills needed in Army jobs and to be effectively implemented. Information and reports on BSEP were reviewed, and three major commands were selected for evaluation. In designing the program, the Army did not identify the…

This report describes 11 effective compensatory education programs in Oregon schools funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act. One high school, four middle school, and six elementary school programs are profiled. Each profile includes the following information: (1) demographics; (2) staffing; (3) parent…

This document tracks the 1983 implementation in 11 New York City schools of the Program to Raise Educational Performance (PREP), designed for ninth graders who do not meet high school entrance requirements. Under the program, students may enter high school, take credit courses, and also receive special support and theme-related remedial reading…

The study sought to determine the effects of a summer bridge program on the academic, personal, and social development of underrepresented and low-income students during their first year at the University of California, Los Angeles. The 1988 cohort of students enrolled in the Freshman Summer Program/Transfer Summer Program (FSP/TSP) were tracked…

A cost effectiveness study by the Austin (Texas) Independent School District of its elementary compensatory reading programs, namely, the Chapter 1 Reading Improvement Program (Chapter 1 Regular) and Schoolwide Projects (SWP), found that the Schoolwide Projects cost two to three times as much to achieve the same gains in student achievement as did…

School reform efforts today have a personal focus that emphasizes attending to the problems faced by individual at-risk students. After outlining the impact of student dropouts, this document uses information from a review of 150 at-risk student programs described in related professional literature to describe six basic weaknesses in current…

The 1982-83 school year was the second year of the New York City (New York) Public Schools Promotional Gates Program. Under this program students in grades four and seven who failed to attain their promotional criteria (in both reading and mathematics) were retained for a year of intensive remedial instruction. This report is the result of a…

This research assessed whether Israel's "second-chance" educational programs, the academic preparatory programs (APP) that challenge the sorting criteria of the mainstream, succeed in enhancing social equality in education. Successful outcomes of the APP are analyzed in light of the reported failure of community colleges to moderate…

The Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) research demonstration was initiated in 1984 to test the effects of a two-summer remediation, work, and life skills intervention on the lives of 14- and 15-year-olds from poor urban families who were already seriously behind academically. The program provided youth with half-day summer jobs combined…

The State of Ohio has been offering successful supplementary programs in the basic skills under the Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1 for over 20 years. Almost all Ohio school districts provide Chapter 1 services. An average of 140,000 children have been served over the past five years. Most are from migrant and other low income…

This report highlights the steps that colleges and universities in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states are taking to reduce the need for remedial college courses, addressing the following issues: who needs remedial education; how many students entering college need remedial courses; whether state policies on college-level assessment…

This report presents a summary of the State of South Carolina's utilization of Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I and Education Consolidation and Improvement Act Chapter 1 funds as a resource for educationally disadvantaged students during the past 5 years, and identifies those projects exhibiting the greatest gains in terms of student…

In January 1986, the Virginia State Board for Community Colleges and the State Council of Higher Education undertook a joint study of postsecondary remedial education. The purposes of the study were to: (1) define the minimum levels of competence required of a student wishing to do college-level work for degree credit; (2) develop methods and…