The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Legacies Shaping Public Education." Contents include: (1) Valuable from the…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) The War on Progress: Why the National…

In this commentary, we discuss the implications of recent research led by Bart Hirsch, Reed Larson and Charles Smith. Each study helps deepen our understanding of youth work practice and can inform policy strategies aimed at developing a strong, stable, committed and prepared OST workforce. (Contains 4 footnotes and a list of Resources.)

Social well-being is essential to overall health and quality of life for all children, youth, and adults. However, children and youth with disabilities are often at higher risk for experiencing lower levels of social, and related emotional, well-being than their peers without disabilities. They are among those more likely to be bullied and…

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…

This commentary highlights the work of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS), a collaborative of mature, city and county-wide nonprofit OST intermediaries, to develop and adopt common youth-, program- and system-level measures that are easy and cost-effective for local systems to implement. By agreeing to adopt and publicly…

This report describes state efforts to carry out supplemental educational services (SES)requirements. It is the first in a series of CEP publications on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) implementation that will report on the results of 2006 surveys of officials from 50 state educational agencies, a national sample of school districts, and case…

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) promotes research on the civic and political engagements of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25. The following topics are covered in this issue of "Around the CIRCLE": (1) Common Social Studies Teaching Practices and their Civic Outcomes; (2) CIRCLE Jointly Hosts…

This paper argues that young Hispanic (or Latina/o) children (ages 3 to 8 years) should be of particular interest to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in education. Young Hispanic children constitute an urgent demographic imperative. Young Hispanic children are not only the largest racial/ethnic group in the U.S., but also the youngest…

States and communities across the country recognize that creating a shared set of desired outcomes for young people provides the opportunity to take stock in how well children and teens are doing on national and local levels. While some of this data is available across time and states, much of it focuses on the negative indicators (e.g., teen…

More than 10 million children from birth through age six in the US live in low-income families. Although large investments in early childhood intervention programs are evident, is the field fully exploiting its potential to address the diverse needs of children and families? One means of addressing this question is to focus on the efficacy of…

Increasingly, out-of-school time programs are being asked to provide data that documents their progress and demonstrates their results. But for many OST programs and their over-worked staff this added responsibility is the "straw that broke the camel?s back." Across the country there is a cry from programs for help in deciding what to measure and…

"The Challenge", a publication of the US Department of Education's office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, provides critical information and resources to assist schools in creating safe and healthy environments for young people. This issue addresses the following topics: (1) Prevention Programs with Staying Power: What Makes Good Prevention Programs…

The purpose of "Focus" is to provide coverage of poverty-related research, events, and issues, and to acquaint a large audience with the work of the Institute for Research on Poverty by means of short essays on selected pieces of research. This issue features articles drawn from four of the conference papers presented at the September 2007 IRP…

As the issue of older youth and out-of-school time is gaining new attention across the country in the context of the after-school movement, it is important to remember that there are many programs for teens that operate in the out-of-school hours. This issue of Forum Focus documents a range of promising developments for capitalizing on the…